200x 250r Trike Voltage AC or DC? Answered here finally

[roger86200x]

FACT: 250R and 200X put out AC voltage.

I have read so many people argue about whether trikes run on AC or DC power for the lights, etc.

I was sick of trying to see who was right... so I went out with my volt meter today and checked.

I found that on BOTH the 250R and the 200X the voltage is AC for sure.

My 250R idles low and was putting out 8-10 Volts AC and the 200X was putting out 10-11 Volts AC at Idle.

When I revved up the motor I got 12 Volts plus.

Same thing with the 200S I have.

If you have a battery on the trike for electric start it will most likely be DC as the battery is DC and needs DC to charge it. This is accomplished by adding a voltage rectifier that converts AC to DC.


I have seen people argue it both ways so I had to find out.

The stator in the motor generates AC power. There is an AC Voltage regulator on the trike that prevents the voltage from going too high, but in a batteryless trike I do not think you will find a voltage rectifier. I may be wrong on that one, Im sure there is ONE exception to the rule somewhere that someone will point out - but the 250R, 200X and 200s all put out AC voltage for sure.

[deathman53]

there is a voltage regulator in all atv's with lights or capable of lights. Its usually the small siver box thats on the sub-frame or by the steering stem(quad).

[roger86200x]

there is a voltage regulator in all atv's with lights or capable of lights. Its usually the small siver box thats on the sub-frame or by the steering stem(quad).

Yes and as I stated the regulator does NOT convert AC to DC. A voltage rectifier converts AC to DC.

They all have AC regulators, yes. But what was your point? I already stated that.

200X, 250R, and 200S all put out AC Voltage. They have no rectifier...... only an AC Regulator (which regulates the amount of voltage that goes through it only.

[leokendall]

i'm pretty sure on the e-start bikes the reg and the rectifier are combined in the same box. now on some bike that don't run a battery people have put a rectifer in the system to power accsories like a gps. spot light do not need dc but if it is a rechargable spotlight u will need dc. a voltage reg may have 1, 2, or 4 wires usally 2 yellow wires and a black and a green i belive, and a rectifer usally have a red black green and another colour but i cant remember.

[roger86200x]

Correct. The e-start with a battery, etc usually are combined. Its better to only have 1 box floating around on the bike than 2. PLus its easy to integrate them together and less to break.


I will have to get a rectifier though so I can complete my latest idea, lol.

[atctim]

Where are you measuring your voltage? The stator puts out AC - but go unplug your headlight bulbs and measure it there - it is DC.

Switch your voltmeter from AC to DC and you will get a reading either way - EXAMPLE:

I just took a AA battery and put it on my volt meter. I had the meter set to read up to 3 VDC - and it read 1.5V DC. Then I switched my volt meter to read up to 3 V AC - and checked the battery - it read 1.5 V AC.

Does this mean I have a one of a kind AC battery???????

[Taiser]

The stator puts out AC, the rectifier takes out the "low portion" of the wave and makes it DC. A regulator just maxes out the voltage at about 14.

Battery equiped trikes have a rectifier/regulator, to charge the battery, that's it. Lights run off the battery when connected to minimize the "dim" effect when idling and preserve bulb life with a nice even flow of power. The lights will work without the battery but will dim like crazy everytime you let off on the gas and will burn bulbs out faster. Running without a battery will kill the rectifier in short order.

[leokendall]

to get a good idea where your bike is ac or dc, get a 12 volt dc motor, say like a starter motor. (HAS TO BE DC) sorry for the caps but just want to make sure people understood that. hook up the motor whiile the bike is running, if the motor turns at a fair rpm, your bike is a dc. if it wants to turn but dosen't more like a vibrating efect , then your bike is an ac.
i can get into how ac and dc are different but to shorten the story, dc- direct flow always positive to negative. ac is alterating current, jumps back in forth form positive to negative to netural.

lol another way, dunno if works with 12 volts but grab a hole of the bare wires while the bike is running, if the power makes your hand.arm steffen up like contracting your muscles, that dc for ya, if it knocks ya back, that is ac.

[roger86200x]

Where are you measuring your voltage? The stator puts out AC - but go unplug your headlight bulbs and measure it there - it is DC.

Switch your voltmeter from AC to DC and you will get a reading either way - EXAMPLE:

I just took a AA battery and put it on my volt meter. I had the meter set to read up to 3 VDC - and it read 1.5V DC. Then I switched my volt meter to read up to 3 V AC - and checked the battery - it read 1.5 V AC.

Does this mean I have a one of a kind AC battery???????

OK, Look - STOP arguing with me.

FACT - 250r, 200x, and 200s are AC VOLTAGE.

I measured the voltage with a digital volt meter AT the HEADLIGHT and TAILLIGHT ,NOT THE STATOR. I am a computer Netowrk Administrator with a HIGH level of knowledge in the electrical fields. I know how to run my volt meter and i know the difference between AC and DC - I do not need to be spoon fed.

Your battery thing means that you dont know how to run your volt meter or that its junk. I put my voltmeter on DC and got ZERO (0) volts DC - I set my meter to 20v dc and 200v dc just to prove it. I put it on 200v AC and wouldnt you know it..... 8-12V AC.

Ther is NOT a rectifier on a 250r, 200x, or 200s. The ONLY purpose to have DC on a trike is for electric start. If you have a battery you have DC - if you dont you have AC. There is NO REASON for Honda to waste money to put a rectifier on a trike, unless it had an electric starter.


FACT: THE 1984 250R, 1986 200X, and 1984 200S are AC VOLTAGE. THERE IS NO DC VOTLAGE ON THE TRIKE.

[leokendall]

i' agrees with roger. let me point it plain and simple. Why do you need dc on a bike that will only run the light. you do not. All generators at start puts of ac. some of you may argue but it the case. some generators have lil small boxes on them taht changes it to dc. is just a few lil diaods that do this. Light can run of ac no problem. if you can slow down time alot, you will see that your lights with an ac current will flicker. reason because ac goes from positive to netural to negative to netural to positive and etc, there is a short gap that no power at is is transmitting. so a bike that do not have a dc output and or battery will not have a dc charge, unless someone had modded it to make it dc.
Dc bikes will have a battery for the most parat and or a dc output. you cannot charge a battery with ac power. it has to be a direct current, how can you charge a batter with a current that puttin of positive and negativce currents?

[roger86200x]

to get a good idea where your bike is ac or dc, get a 12 volt dc motor, say like a starter motor. (HAS TO BE DC) sorry for the caps but just want to make sure people understood that. hook up the motor whiile the bike is running, if the motor turns at a fair rpm, your bike is a dc. if it wants to turn but dosen't more like a vibrating efect , then your bike is an ac.
i can get into how ac and dc are different but to shorten the story, dc- direct flow always positive to negative. ac is alterating current, jumps back in forth form positive to negative to netural.

lol another way, dunno if works with 12 volts but grab a hole of the bare wires while the bike is running, if the power makes your hand.arm steffen up like contracting your muscles, that dc for ya, if it knocks ya back, that is ac.

ACTUALLY - When talking DC - electrons flow FROM the negative pole TO the Positive pole...... if you want to get scientific.

AC - jumps from positive to negative to neutral huh?

Nope.
Example: You have 2 hot "phases" of 110/120 coming in your house. You then have a grounding plate in the panel box that your neutral wire and ground wire get hooked to.... the same place or 2 seperate individual grounds.... but they bot hen up grounded. Ground and neutral are the same thing. If your house is wired correctly you can measure about 0 volts from neutral to ground. But you get 110/120 volts AC if you measure hot to ground or hot to neutral. (Hot is the black wire in home wiring and the SMALLER blade type hole in an electrical outlet. Most people believe the hot it the bigger slot but its not.

Same thing with trikes, you have a hot and a ground with AC still. One wire is always the "hot" wire. It is the phase of the electricity or Sine wave that changes polarity - in the same wire.

And leo is right, the lights DO flicker but the human eye cant see it. If you recorded it with an ultra fast camera and slowed it down you would see the flickering. The "HOT" wire goes from +120V in yoru house to -120V in nano seconds. The HOT wire is never a neutral wire or ground though.

[leokendall]

kinda same thing i said but just i said it in a weird prob. verry hard to pick out.
go look at a wiring diagram of your own bike, if there a rectifier *Edited**Edited* bike is dc, if not then it's ac,
rem some reg and rect are the same unit, but usally it's called a regulator rectifier.

for the most part i think people know the diffs but someone people loves to think differently.

and just to note anything is possible with a few mods.

[roger86200x]

kinda same thing i said but just i said it in a weird prob. verry hard to pick out.
go look at a wiring diagram of your own bike, if there a rectifier *Edited**Edited* bike is dc, if not then it's ac,
rem some reg and rect are the same unit, but usally it's called a regulator rectifier.

for the most part i think people know the diffs but someone people loves to think differently.

and just to note anything is possible with a few mods.

LOL... the things people do - u r right.

OR, get a volt meter and be SURE about it

[leokendall]

ACTUALLY - When talking DC - electrons flow FROM the negative pole TO the Positive pole...... if you want to get scientific.

AC - jumps from positive to negative to neutral huh?

on dc, you have positive and negative leads



on ac you have hot and netural leads (no positive no negaitve leads,)



The purpose of a rectifier is to convert an AC waveform into a DC waveform. There are two different rectification circuits, known as 'half-wave' and 'full-wave' rectifiers. Both use components called diodes to convert AC into DC.

A diode is a device which only allows current to flow through it in one direction. In this direction, the diode is said to be 'forward-biased' and the only effect on the signal is that there will be a voltage loss of around 0.7V. In the opposite direction, the diode is said to be 'reverse-biased' and no current will flow though it.


The Half-wave Rectifier

The half-wave rectifier is the simplest type of rectifier since it only uses one diode, as shown in figure 1.



Figure 2 shows the AC input waveform to this circuit and the resulting output. As you can see, when the AC input is positive, the diode is forward-biased and lets the current through. When the AC input is negative, the diode is reverse-biased and the diode does not let any current through, meaning the output is 0V. Because there is a 0.7V voltage loss across the diode, the peak output voltage will be 0.7V less than Vs.



While the output of the half-wave rectifier is DC (it is all positive), it would not be suitable as a power supply for a circuit. Firstly, the output voltage continually varies between 0V and Vs-0.7V, and secondly, for half the time there is no output at all.
The Full-wave Rectifier

The circuit in figure 3 addresses the second of these problems since at no time is the output voltage 0V. This time four diodes are arranged so that both the positive and negative parts of the AC waveform are converted to DC. The resulting waveform is shown in figure 4.





When the AC input is positive, diodes A and B are forward-biased, while diodes C and D are reverse-biased. When the AC input is negative, the opposite is true - diodes C and D are forward-biased, while diodes A and B are reverse-biased.

One disadvantage of the full-wave rectifier is that there is a voltage loss of 1.4V across the diodes. Why not 2.8V as there are four diodes? Remember that only two of the diodes are passing current at any one time!

While the full-wave rectifier is an improvement on the half-wave rectifier, its output still isn't suitable as a power supply for most circuits since the output voltage still varies between 0V and Vs-1.4V. So, if you put 12V AC in, you will 10.6V DC out.



put that in ya pipe and smoke it lol

taken from

http://www.eleinmec.com/article.asp?18

[roger86200x]

Well.... ok.... but I basically said the same thing.

AC current has a Hot Wire, and a neutral wire.... and sometimes a ground.

"AC - jumps from positive to negative to neutral" huh?

that was a quote from you.... not me... you said there were positive leads lol.....


In DC the electrons flow FROM the negative pole of the battery TO the Positive pole. This is a fact...

Im not sure which one you were disputing so I went over both lol.


"Since we have decided to call electrons "negatively" charged (thanks, Ben!), the negative end of a battery is that end which tries to push electrons out of it. Likewise, the positive end is that end which tries to attract electrons.

With the "+" and "-" ends of the battery not connected to anything, there will be voltage between those two points, but there will be no flow of electrons through the battery, because there is no continuous path for the electrons to move. "
http://www.allaboutcircuits.com/vol_1/chpt_1/4.html

Also,

"The alternative to AC is DC, or direct current. Batteries produce DC: A steady stream of electrons flows in one direction only, from the negative to the positive terminal of the battery. "
http://science.howstuffworks.com/power2.htm

Also,

"Originally, electrical power was formed by chemical reaction, and that's still the way that batteries work. This type of current, known as direct current (DC), flows from a negative pole, through an electrical device (such as a light bulb), and on to the positive pole."
http://www.hometips.com/articles/sun...l_acdc009.html

smoking it? lol