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Post by buckraliegh on Oct 25, 2008 9:26:09 GMT -5
I just got a capacitor from an army surpluss for $1 Its a little vague on the numbers though. From what I gather it is 50v 3900uf. Not what I was looking for but $1. I hooked it up and it worked great. Bright lights blinkers etc... The second time the blinkers would not work so I put my dry dead battery back in and everything works fine now. Could this cap cause damage to the system? do I need a lower voltage?
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THUMPS
Junior Member
THUMPS, ridden by Dave
Posts: 92
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Post by THUMPS on Oct 26, 2008 8:26:01 GMT -5
I just purchased 3- 10,000mf 50v capacitors. One for each of my 500s. I couldn't believe how small they can be made these days. They are 2 inch long and 1" diameter.
If you are using gel cells or other high efficiency cells make sure that they can sustain 14 volt input. Many types are very sensitive to over charging. If you use a lithium battery You can get a nice hot fire started.
This paragraph is off topic.... I went and visited my original SR last Thursday. It has been rebuilt with a stock compression Wisco piston. It hasnt been run in 15 years. He was having trouble finding some rubber gasket in the accerator pump but was going to order a part from a Kawasaki 4 cylinder which he thought to be the same. I am trying to keep the bike stock.
further off topic.... I am surprised that the police in some areas have so little to do but to check your horn and lights without a battery. Where I live you are required to have a headlight, taillight, brakelight and horn. All the harleys run with straight pipes.
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Post by StewRoss on Oct 29, 2008 3:28:43 GMT -5
An update on my charging system...it all tested fine including a full test of the ignition system, well all except for the coil...U/S...breakdown in the secondary windings...good. I'll try it all with the capacitor again and see how it goes...can't imagine any change. I know the capacitor is OK. Still at least I'll feel more confident taking it down through the mountains at the end of November on the way to the rally at Bethanga... It'll be back in time for me to let a guy who'll be over from Wichita ride it on the 14th... SR  |
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THUMPS
Junior Member
THUMPS, ridden by Dave
Posts: 92
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Post by THUMPS on Nov 5, 2008 19:17:19 GMT -5
My first attempt at stabilizing my electric system have not gone very well. I ordered what were described as 10,000mf but were in actuality 10,000uf or 10mf. Yeah my lights light up but there is no difference noted, lots of flicker just as before. I don't have turn signals so I didnt try that.
I should have known better. I am going to try and wire my 3 caps in parallel and see what 30mf does. I bet more than 30 will be needed maybe about 300mf (.3 farad) would be good.
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Post by StewRoss on Nov 6, 2008 6:48:01 GMT -5
Well I got all the electrics back and other than a faulty ignition coil, which I have now replaced, all is OK. Guess I will learn to live with the reduced ability that the bike has as far as the indicators and the headlight on at one time at low revs. The other option for me is to use a much smaller sealed lead acid battery that would assist the electrics at low revs better than the eliminator. SR  |
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THUMPS
Junior Member
THUMPS, ridden by Dave
Posts: 92
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Post by THUMPS on Nov 6, 2008 13:40:21 GMT -5
I took a look at wiring my 3, 10,000 uf caps in parallel. Still not doing its job. Started tracing circuit with a multimeter and found that I had a blown fuse. Duh!
Next I wired the cap bank into the circuit directly and wow had great lights.
Listening to the advice of others here, I decided to snip off the caps one at a time and before I knew it, I was back to 1, 10,000uf cap and working fine. Just as others had predicted.
I am gonna make some brackets for the rectifier, capacitor and cdi. Then show and tell.
Thanks
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THUMPS
Junior Member
THUMPS, ridden by Dave
Posts: 92
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Post by THUMPS on Nov 6, 2008 20:04:30 GMT -5
I got the old battery out and mounted the capacitor in a clamp and bolted both it and the rectifier onto an aluminum bar. I posted some pictures on my SR web site. Feeling enthused I built a carbonfiber seat base but that's in a different forum area. |
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suzukii
New Member
big boom......111111111111
Posts: 6
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Post by suzukii on Nov 24, 2008 0:48:23 GMT -5
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Post by miker on Nov 24, 2008 11:02:32 GMT -5
For sake of the non-electonic, caps are usually sized in "uf" (micro-farads) or "pf" (pico-farads). While I've heard of "milli-farads" being used that is quite rare, and the "mf" in a catalog more than likely means micro-farads.
10,000 uf is the size I went with, works great. I don't have any signals on the bike tho, so I can't speak to that.
miker
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