Voltage regulator

[Footy]

If you have a 200x, 250R or 350X and you do not use the head light or tail light is the voltage regulator necessary?
Can it be removed and the ATC be ridden without the VR without causing any damage to the electrical system?

[ScreaminRed]

I'm pretty sure your stator supplies ac voltage to the regulator which in turn changes it from ac to dc voltage. What I can say is on my 83 big red is it would run without it and my lights worked although dimmer. When I installed a new regulator recently, with a new solenoid and battery the lights were bright, elec start works, and the battery is being charged.

I think you would be fine without the regulator on the trikes your mentioning, but I'm not 100% on that. I'd have to look at the elec schematic in the manual. Hope that helps some!

Sent from my SM-N960U1 using Tapatalk

[Footy]

Trail Tech sells a simple 2 wire voltage regulator but it is for AC voltage. I am not sure if the 350X puts out AC or DC voltage. I will look in the service manual . Hopefully it will show AC or DC output.

[ATC King]

Simple answer, yes, it can be removed if not using the lights.

The only thing it's there for is the lighting circuit, nothing else.



EVERY trike puts out AC power because they use a permanent magnet stator. ONLY the trikes with electric start, which uses a battery, come equipped with a regulator/rectifier to rectify and regulate the power. The reg/rec are built as one unit but serve two different functions.

With the exception of DC generators, which most people will never see or use unless they own a very old vehicle or have a modern version for special applications, every car, truck, motorcycle, boat, go-kart, mini-bike, ATV, lawn mower...ALL use a charging design that puts out AC voltage which is rectified and regulated in order to provide DC power and charge a battery. Some, like modern car alternators, have the electronics built in, but they produce AC current which is why the waveform gets jacked up when a diode goes bad but the alternator itself is still good.

There's no need to overthink it...

[Footy]

Simple answer, yes, it can be removed if not using the lights.

The only thing it's there for is the lighting circuit, nothing else.



EVERY trike puts out AC power because they use a permanent magnet stator. ONLY the trikes with electric start, which uses a battery, come equipped with a regulator/rectifier to rectify and regulate the power. The reg/rec are built as one unit but serve two different functions.

With the exception of DC generators, which most people will never see or use unless they own a very old vehicle or have a modern version for special applications, every car, truck, motorcycle, boat, go-kart, mini-bike, ATV, lawn mower...ALL use a charging design that puts out AC voltage which is rectified and regulated in order to provide DC power and charge a battery. Some, like modern car alternators, have the electronics built in, but they produce AC current which is why the waveform gets jacked up when a diode goes bad but the alternator itself is still good.

There's no need to overthink it...

Thank you for the clarification.

[ATC King]

You're welcome.

I forgot to mention that if you're going to remove the lights and voltage regulator from any of the Honda sport trikes make certain everything is unplugged and the wire coming from the stator doesn't ground on anything.

Most if not all of the sport trikes (I don't know all the models and years and wiring diagrams) have a grounded lighting coil. If the one wire coming from that is grounded out, directly shorted, it may burn out the lighting coil. It needs to be secured and the terminal insulated so that it's not just flopping around.

The hard tail models, 185, 185S, 200S and maybe some others have a floating ground on the lighting coil, meaning there's two wires. The ground is normally attached to the frame or engine but if both wires are unhooked there's little chance it'll short out as easily than with just one wire.