Some 3 Phase Alternator Findings, 82 1100 A2

Yeah, it's definitely a short-duty item. Anything longer than a minute at high RPMs and the resistors will get HOT.

With four 50 watt resistor, I'm right up close to the limit at max power from the stator. But then, I wouldn't expect to test it at max power for long since the engine will probably be overheating too.

I imagine a real test, I'd ride the bike around to get it up to temp then hook up the load for a short time, but measure while everything was still hot.

So are you doing a test of 1 of your systems? Single or 3 phase or both? If you are we can compare both output figures and test setups.
I got MFOLKS to suggest a heater grid, as he built these along with stabilizing capacitors, I believe, on a large scale for industrial load testing. I'm going to look into this, as China Tools has some 12v heaters cheap, but I want to be able to build the load up with a adjustment, rheostat, or something, hopefully part of the "Unit" chosen, Cheap and available.

The problem with a steady rheostat is that the rheostat has to handle a huge amount of power when it's resistance equals the load's. If you can get a 400 watt rheostat, it may work ok. It still has the same problem of having to control it continuously to maintain the voltage.

I like the heater grid idea, but a heater's resistance changes a lot as it heats up, so it may need a lot of adjusting. Bulbs heat up and stabilize pretty rapidly, but I think heater elements take more time, and thus will be slower to react to adjustments, resulting in over-correcting.

I must have gone through dozens of ideas to try to keep it super simple, but I couldn't come up with anything useable, hence the tester I ended up making is pretty involved.

Also, any load device you make needs to have a capacitor to smooth out the power. If not, then the meter's voltage reading will not be as meaningful. What i mean by that is when you use a meter to read DC voltage, it is measuring the average voltage. What we really want is the RMS voltage. Normally, as long as the DC is realtively smooth, the RMS voltage is basically the same as RMS voltage. But if the DC is heavily pulsed, the two values deviate quite a bit.

I haven't really worked with these, but wouldn't it be possible to just make a rectifier, attach a big capcitor, then hook the output of the rectifier to this thing:
www.harborfreight.com/500-amp-carbon-pil...ad-tester-91129.html

Rectifiers are simple enough to make. Here's a simple one using silicon rectifiers. But selenium ones wouldn't be a lot harder to make, but maybe slightly harder to get (they are preferred because they waste less power than silicon diodes).

DIY rectifier

I haven't seen that one at our Harbor Freight store, and they won't do special orders any more. Maybe one of the stores up in Denver would have it. It is a China copy of testers that have been around for many years, @ a 1/10th of the cost. This carbon pile with the adjustable load is perfect, of course. Price is cheap enough, although I was hoping to set up a lower cost test. Also someone not familiar with these would have to be careful not to apply to much load, that tester can load 500 AMPs. But to be able to also load test the small motorcycle battery would be great, as this is also very important to see if it has the storage capacity.

OK I just finished with the (RATED OUTPUT LOAD TEST) for this bike. The spec is 20 AMPs of current flow, with 14 volts DC at the same time.
I got a nice load coming from my stock electrical system when running, about 9 AMPs, but I want to take the LOAD up to what the system is rated at. After some discussion and testing/ measuring, I found that hanging on the Garage wall was a perfect candidate. It is a 12 cooling fan module from a car, and 1 fan motor has a 10 AMP steady draw. This added to the battery creates the extra load needed to test for the rated output.
So with my cheap $5.99 HF AMP meter hooked into the Red/white wire that comes off of the R/R and back to the bullet plug Y, this where all of the testing was done, it shows me the current that the charging system is putting out. Now I also have a volt meter hooked between ground on the frame,and the R/R side of the Red/white wire, where the AMP meter is connected. This is at the male bullet end.
I'm in process of posting some lousy pic's.
So to the test, fist with only the Stock bike stuff, at Idle, 1000RPM, I get a AMP flow exactly matching my already know system usage, about 9 AMPs and 14.02 DCV. Next to take it up in RPM, voltage increased slightly right away, to 15 DCV, revving higher there was no change.
So now we do the FULL LOAD TEST, adding 1 electric cooling fan from a car, which increases the current flow load to real close to 20 AMPS we do it again, Idle= 20AMPs and 14DCV, rev to 3400 and hold it there, 20AMPS and 15.02 DCV, then disconnecting the additional load after 3 minutes, with it still running 3400RPM, AMPs dropped back to 9, and volts lifted slightly to 15.37.
So once I spent the time to set up this test, the measuring and buying the HF cheap AMP meter, testing the Car Cooling Fan Current Draw in AMPs, the actual testing was less than 10 minutes, once the bike was warmed to temp. Oh and the cooling fan is what I use to place in front of the bikes engine when doing stationary testing/ tuning. It was $20 at the U-Pull & Pay Wreckers. You may have a car with a fan in it at the radiator or AC condenser you can use, without removing it, just unplug it and jump it, or use the pins at the fuse/ relay box under the hood.

Pic 1 Idle Load, and Voltage

Idle with extra load of AMPs

3400 RPM loaded to and producing 20 AMPs and 15 DCV

Cooling FAN

OK so I don't post it all again. Go to #390092 in this thread for how to test for the RATED OUTPUT of your charging system.
kzrider.com/index.php?option=com_kunena&...limitstart=20#390098

That's awesome. So I take it you had the reg/rec hooked up completely and to the battery? Does it usually get up to 15v on the battery?