Stator question, please help

[BikeSwimLaugh]

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!!!!

[LT80]

I'm with you, I highly doubt stator damage.
According to your expieriences with the lights, it seems that they work fine. I'd run em. :)

[chunky0071]

First off it's sound like you have an e-start model not sure but sounds like it.

Second if so you will only be killing battery's and rectifyers. The stator could go out but not as likly as the other 2.
Hope this helps but your friend is right about not putting lights on it. It will cause damage.

[gistmarrs]

I had a project that required a battery on a quad that doesn't have one a while back. My solution was to use one of my Ryobi 12v lithium batteries. It lasted for a long time and when it was drained I just popped it in the charger and connected another one to the bike.

Marrs

[BikeSwimLaugh]

Originally posted by gistmarrs
My solution was to use one of my Ryobi 12v lithium batteries. It lasted for a long time and when it was drained I just popped it in the charger and connected another one to the bike.


Yes, the '07 TRX90 is electric start, if that matters.

I had the similar idea, running a separate & second battery that isn't being recharged by the quad. Let it run for the 10-15 minutes the kids ride around at night...but to be honest, that means finding the batteries before we leave, charging them and dealing with mounting them and all that jazz. When camping, there are so many details and things to remember, I'd really rather not add to that list with having to deal with bringing, charging and dealing with an extra set of batteries. I actually have 2 TRX90's for two of my daughters.

Then again, when we go camping I bring some R/C cars and they have these nice battery packs...think they're 7.2-volts...perhaps I'll just hack & pop some 7.2volt bulbs into the housing and then find a way to attach the battery pack to the quad....then just tell my daughters to grab the battery and click it in when they want to run lights. I suppose that's the easiest way to go.

But we're certain: damage to stator/rectifiers will occur for sure if I run some 10-watt bulbs?

[BikeSwimLaugh]

Originally posted by chunky0071

you will only be killing battery's and rectifyers. The stator could go out but not as likly as the other 2....but your friend is right about not putting lights on it. It will cause damage.

Okay, I did the research and here is the info. I called Ricky Stator and spoke with the technician and, in short, I was right.

The stator is merely a coil...it can not die or get hurt, it is not an electrical component with sensitive circuitry as such. Same with the rectifier, it merely controls the voltage coming out of the stator.

The situation is as I suspected. The stator only makes enough juice to basically keep the battery charged and then a bit more...it really can't support lights. The Ricky Stator item runs about $125 and it's a new stator and rectifier...once installed it can run about 50-watts worth of lighting.

Now...if I continue to run my dual 55-watt bulbs, it'll merely rundown the battery over time. As the bulbs burn, the battery will simply deplete of juice and eventually the lights will dim and the quad would stall. How long would this take? Well....my daughter rode the quad around for about 10-15 minutes and then left the lights on another 15 minutes...and given this 30 minutes of run-time, the lights were still darn bright. I disconnected the lights and tried to start the quad; it fired-up immediately. If the battery were worn too far, I'd just jump it.

I'm going to downsize to the smallest H3-style bulb out there: a 35-watt and just run with that. That means her quad could likely run over an hour and like I say, we generally just let the kids ramble about the campsite at night...no long night rides. Beyond that, I could always unplug one of the headlights so we're down to just one 35-watt bulb....the 12-volt battery in the quad would likely run that bulb for 3+ hours before voltage dropped to the point where it would affect the ignition or being able to crank again.

In summary: no damage would occur to the stator or rectifier and only the battery would get run-down over time.

[LT80]

"The stator is merely a coil...it can not die or get hurt, it is not an electrical component with sensitive circuitry as such. Same with the rectifier, it merely controls the voltage coming out of the stator.

The situation is EXACTLY as LT80 and I suspected."

:D :devil: :devil: