BikeSwimLaugh
05-04-2011, 11:56 PM
First-off, I'm not sure this is the right section to put this thread in....so if a mod wants to move it, that's fine (sorry & thanks)
Here's what's up:
I bought my daughter an '07 Honda TRX90 quad....great little quad, pretty much the only one with a foot-operated brake in th 90 size category. Problem: is has no headlights!
Understand, we do NOT do much night riding, but on camping trips the kids will occassionally buzz around the camp at night for 5-15 minutes...never getting more then 300 feet away from the camp. We're not doing Barstow to Vegas or any serious night riding.
I went to Pep Boys and bought a cute little set of halogen lights...each with a 55-watt bulb. To my surprise, these little things were SUPER BRIGHT....but then my friend told me: the TRX90 has a stator, not an alternator/generator....not only is the stator unable to keep-up with the drain from the 55-watt bulbs, but I will damage the stator eventually. Now, to me that doesn't make much sense...perhaps I'm wrong, but the stator is little more then a coil with a magnet spinning around on the flywheel to generate some juice. I can readily understand and imagine the battery over time (while riding) eventually getting weak and the quad stalling and needing a jump-start ....but permanent damage to the stator??? Any thoughts or confirmation here?
What's that you say? Blow coin on a Ricky Stator aftermarket stator?....nahh...too much hassle. We bought some LED lights that were H3 style to fit right into the housing in place of the 55-watt halogen bulbs...but the LED's were too long to fit into the housing and while you can look directly at the LED and it looks crazy-bright, it actually projects very little true illumination.
My thought is to downsize to a 8-12 watt typical 12-volt flashlight battery and hack the lamp housing with another bulb socket...but that might even be too much for the OEM stator...as the Ricky Stator supposedly supports only 10-watt bulbs.
In closing, let me add this....in the past I've let my daughter run those dual 55-watt bulbs for 10-20 minutes and she even left the lights on for 10 minutes afterwards: it didn't affect the quad in the least....fired right up the next day and thus far the stator works fine. Given this, I'm considering just bumping down to the smallest wattage H3 bulb (35-watts) and just leaving things alone. We always bring a jump-start battery along if it won't fire the next day. My only true concern is damaging the stator and losing the use of the quad while camping.
Given all this I've written, what say you all? THANKS!!!!
Here's what's up:
I bought my daughter an '07 Honda TRX90 quad....great little quad, pretty much the only one with a foot-operated brake in th 90 size category. Problem: is has no headlights!
Understand, we do NOT do much night riding, but on camping trips the kids will occassionally buzz around the camp at night for 5-15 minutes...never getting more then 300 feet away from the camp. We're not doing Barstow to Vegas or any serious night riding.
I went to Pep Boys and bought a cute little set of halogen lights...each with a 55-watt bulb. To my surprise, these little things were SUPER BRIGHT....but then my friend told me: the TRX90 has a stator, not an alternator/generator....not only is the stator unable to keep-up with the drain from the 55-watt bulbs, but I will damage the stator eventually. Now, to me that doesn't make much sense...perhaps I'm wrong, but the stator is little more then a coil with a magnet spinning around on the flywheel to generate some juice. I can readily understand and imagine the battery over time (while riding) eventually getting weak and the quad stalling and needing a jump-start ....but permanent damage to the stator??? Any thoughts or confirmation here?
What's that you say? Blow coin on a Ricky Stator aftermarket stator?....nahh...too much hassle. We bought some LED lights that were H3 style to fit right into the housing in place of the 55-watt halogen bulbs...but the LED's were too long to fit into the housing and while you can look directly at the LED and it looks crazy-bright, it actually projects very little true illumination.
My thought is to downsize to a 8-12 watt typical 12-volt flashlight battery and hack the lamp housing with another bulb socket...but that might even be too much for the OEM stator...as the Ricky Stator supposedly supports only 10-watt bulbs.
In closing, let me add this....in the past I've let my daughter run those dual 55-watt bulbs for 10-20 minutes and she even left the lights on for 10 minutes afterwards: it didn't affect the quad in the least....fired right up the next day and thus far the stator works fine. Given this, I'm considering just bumping down to the smallest wattage H3 bulb (35-watts) and just leaving things alone. We always bring a jump-start battery along if it won't fire the next day. My only true concern is damaging the stator and losing the use of the quad while camping.
Given all this I've written, what say you all? THANKS!!!!