Fault Finding Lucas Motorcycle Charging Systems

This procedure assumes you have a problem already, generally your battery keeps going flat and you want to find out why.

First things first

Do your lights brighten when you rev your engine? After a run is your rectifier warm? Zener diode? After market combined rectifier/regulator if you have one? If any of these items are stone cold it may be because they are not working or you have a broken connection. When working, electrical things get warm. Its worth checking these things especially for loose or poor connections. All electrical connections need to be tight. Dont be afraid of checking them over especially if you are a new owner. The previous owner may have pushed a broken wire back into its connector and hoped for the best! When trying to determine what the problem might be, if the alternator or rectifier is broken you will always have a flat battery, if the zener is broken you will get battery boiling and bulb blowing from over voltage. Your charging circuit will basically look like this (single phase positive earth.)

Before you start

To check your system out you need a multimeter of some kind. A basic one will do. It must measure AC and DC volts and resistance and preferably have a diode test. If your battery has been going flat then charge your battery first. You will need to start and run your bike to make some checks so lets make sure it will keep running. Forget all this malarkey about My Pazon will operate down to 8 volts. It may well do but consider this, a charged battery will light your main bulb for an hour, a 12v battery that measures 8v at its terminals wont even light the same bulb. A battery is a chemical device not an electronic device. A fully charged battery measures 12.6v, the exact voltage varies slightly depending on the air temperature. A battery just off charge will measure more than this, possibly over 13v.

A quick check
Start your bike and measure the battery voltage, it should be around 12.6v. Rev your bike to 3000 RPM (or a very fast tick over if you dont have a tacho), the voltage should now be in the range 13.5 14.5v. Switch the lights on and off and note the difference. Youd expect the voltage to fall with your lights on. Dont just blip the throttle to make measurements, hold the revs steady for 30 - 60 seconds until the meter reading stabilises. Most Lucas alternators wont usefully charge your battery until over 1500 RPM.

Fault Finding Lucas Motorcycle Charging Systems

Identifying your alternator type
The more modern Lucas rotating magnet (RM) alternators either have 2 wires for single phase or three wires for three phase. Older single phase also had three wires, shown on the right. This arrangement was used on some bikes to switch in extra windings when you put your lights on, useful on 6v bikes which didnt have a zener to regulate the voltage. As shown here you can convert this type of stator to 2 wires by connecting the green yellow and green black wires together. Lucas stators have an id and date of manufacture stamped on them. Below are three phase (left) and single phase examples. Most after-market stators arent identified in any way.

Is my alternator working?
There is not much that can go wrong with an RM alternator so the chances are, yes. It consists of a set of magnets on a rotor, rotating inside a set of poles around which is wound copper wire. What can go wrong with that? Not a lot. The magnets may lose some of their magnetism or the copper wire may break. Thats it.

How to check an alternator

You could use a headlight bulb. Its really a go/nogo check in that if the bulb doesnt light your alternator is broken! Just disconnect your alternator and connect two wires to a headlight bulb. Start your bike and see if the bulb lights. Remember that the voltage is unregulated so dont rev your bike too high or you might blow your bulb. The bulb test however wont tell you if your magnets are weak, to properly test your alternator you need to do the following. First measure the resistance of your stator.

Fault Finding Lucas Motorcycle Charging Systems

On the left I am measuring one phase of a three phase stator, the reading is 1.1 Ohm. To check all phases measure between each pair of wires.. The readings will be low, around 1 ohm on any stator but a low reading will mean the stator is OK. If the wire is broken then your meter will read infinite resistance. Check your meter manual for how this is shown on your meter.

Dont forget your meter leads have some resistance, in my case 0.6 Ohms (see right) so the actual resistance of my stator winding is 0.5 Ohms (1.1-0.6).

You should also check the resistance between the stator leads and the core laminations. It should be infinite as on the left. For infinity my meter shows a 1 with a blank display.

Fault Finding Lucas Motorcycle Charging Systems

If my stator is OK how do I check my rotor?
Easy, with the alternator still disconnected switch your meter to 200v AC, start your bike and measure the voltage between the wires. At 3000 RPM it will be 30v AC for the 47244 stator above. For other alternators I have measured the output of a lot of stators here: http://www.scribd.com/doc/127796075/Testing-Lucas-Alternators-August-2013 so if you know the stator ID you can compare yours to mine. A weak magnet rotor will reduce the voltage by up to 50% but anything over 10% is bad.

Do I need a 1 Ohm resistor?

The Lucas way of checking your stator is to use one but if your stator passes the resistance checks then it is OK. If your voltage is about the same as mine then your rotor magnetism is OK. However if you already have a 1 Ohm resistor then by all means use it and compare your readings to those in the workshop manual. You dont need to buy one if you dont have one, its up to you.

Rectifier checks
Easy to check with your multimeter switched to diode test. On the right I have connected the red probe to the rectifier positive terminal and the black probe to an AC input. The display is showing infinity or no current flow which is correct.

If I then swap the probes over my display now shows 494mv. This reading is called the forward volt drop and should be in the range of 0.5 0.8v so this diode is OK.

Fault Finding Lucas Motorcycle Charging Systems

Remember with diodes, current will flow in one direction but not in the other. If current flows in both directions or both directions are infinite resistance then the diode is broken. This diagram illustrates what we have just checked.

The same test should be done between the positive terminal and the other AC input. That completes checks on one half of the rectifier. To check the other half test between the rectifier negative terminal and each AC input. It is not unusual for one half of the rectifier to fail so one side checks out OK but the other does not.

Zener checks
Note that this test is only to be done with dry cell batteries; any other battery type is likely to fry your zener. Even using dry cell batteries a

zener will get warm to the touch in this test. To check if the zener is working at the correct voltage we first need two 9v dry cell batteries connected in series (positive to negative). Measure their combined voltage, it should be around 18v.

Fault Finding Lucas Motorcycle Charging Systems

Now connect the batteries to your zener. If your bike is positive earth then the positive battery connector is attached to the zener earthing stud and the negative lead to the zener terminal (positive earth zener in the picture below.)

Opposite for negative earth zeners of course (below.)

Fault Finding Lucas Motorcycle Charging Systems

The voltage should be around 14v. If it is still 18v then your zener is broken. If the voltage is 0.5v then swap the connectors over, you may be connected in reverse. Red on the earthing stud for positive earth, black on the stud for negative. If the zener voltage is low in both directions it means your zener has failed with a short-circuit. You can also test your zener with the meter diode test as we did for the rectifier. The result should be the same, current flow one way ( 0.5v) none (infinity) the other. Note that you are only testing the devices diode function not its zener function. If your zener passes this test it might be OK. You really need to do the 18v test as well to be sure.

Combined rectifier/regulator checks

If you have a combined rec/reg then refer to the manufacturers website to see if there are any checks you can do. Generally combined rec/regs can only be checked by fitting another. Remember though that if your alternator checks out OK then you should get an increase in voltage when you rev your engine to 3000 RPM. If you dont then it is likely your rec/reg is broken. If you get an overvoltage at 3000 (especially with lights off) then your rec/reg voltage sensing circuit has broken.

DerryUK August 2013