electrical current

[stomper]

I have been around sleds for a long time now and just found something out, I think. I really hope this doen't make me look stupid but....... I was hooking up a visor plug on my sons indy 400, (non electric start) so I was looking for a 12 volt supply. In the manual it shows an accesory wire, the same wire that is used for the heated grips. I tested it and couldn't get a volt reading but the grips were working. I was testing for DC current and was finding nothing so I switched my meter to AC current and found the 12 Volts that I was looking for. That stumped me because I thought that it would have been DC current. Looking deeper into the manual about trouble shooting the electrical system it says to have the multi meter on the AC setting. Are all nonelectric start sleds electrical systems (without a battery) running on AC current and then what are the electric start systems, (with battery) AC or DC?
I have always thought that the electrical current on vehicles was DC.

 

[rupprider]

stomper, a very non-technical term an engineer buddy uses, is "chopped" AC. Only part of the sine wave


generated by the stator is used. Our VOM only picked voltage up on the AC setting also. I'm sure that persons better versed in electrical theory are cringing at this lame explanation! edit: Don't know about battery vs non-battery systems. rr

 

[stomper]

Thanks for the reply. I put the same question on another forum and this is the answer that I got. Makes sence, I just thought different.

"Sled puts out AC, on sleds with electric start, there is a rectifier to run the DC starter and charge the DC battery. Usually if there is no starter(at least on the older sleds with fewer electronics) they just run on 12V AC."

 

[Blue Dave]

On the older two stroke sleds (without electric start) the electrical system is AC since resistive loads like light bulbs and grip warmers do not care if the voltage is AC or DC. The voltage regulators on these sleds "clipped" the AC voltage to prevent burning out the bulbs at high RPM's. This "clipped" AC voltage is not the same as a fully rectified DC voltage but it will work fine on resistive loads like a heated helmet shield.

Electronics like GPS need rectified and regulated DC voltage like what we have on our modern four stroke Yamaha sleds.

 

[erosled]

On old sleds you will only have AC voltage supplied. Old sleds with electric start will have a regulator/rectifier to supply dc power to replenish the battery after starting the engine. This does not imply that the rest of the unit's electrical system is DC. Many times it is still AC. Yamaha started using DC on it's 2 stroke sleds a while back as it provides better ignition control and allows the use of a "computer" to control other electronics on a machine. (Detonation control,load controls for lighting, handwarmers, etc) Those non-battery DC sleds ran large capacitors to mimic the electrical "smoothing" of a battery.

 

[stomper]

Thanks guys for clearing this up . And I thought I knew everything.

 

[Blue Dave]

None of us know everything but you will find that there is a lot of knowledge collectively among all of the great guys here at TY! I have learned a lot myself here and have always found everyone to be very helpful!