The oil bath is to cool the stator. If it was doing its thing in the open air it would get even hotter. Car alternators have much more wire to dissipate the heat and fans for air cooling. Stator killers seem to be penetrations of the insulating coating causing windings to short together or to ground. The OEM stators seem to last longer than aftermarket or rewinds so I have no good answer as to how to make it last longer except to make sure the rotor magnets are not loose.

 

What about power consumption? Is the stator output constant or is it a function of the power needed - e.g. heating?
Wouldn't heating and strong lights shorten the stator life?

 

Lost mine at 14,000 replaced with OEM and now 43,000.Evertytime I ride I cross my fingers,never have trusted this bike since!!.


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52,000klms in some of the hottest temps I've seen for years, and no problems.

Looks like these things thrive on neglect.

 

Its nothing to do with neglect, its trying to find what makes them burn out. Had three go on my 675 daytona

 

regular automotive grade fuel w/ highest AKI rating

everybody knows that overheated engine oil can fry a stator. the question becomes, how do you keep your engine oil from overheating? one way, not the only way, is to use regular automotive grade fuel with the highest AKI rating. detonation can cause extreme heat. can melt hard parts. so i'm pretty sure it can overheat engine oil.

 

I lost a stator at 65,000 mi. A voltage monitor would have saved me a lot of grief. The wire failure was at the top of the stator, the opposite of the hot oil theory. The Wee never overheats: several hours in 110°F heat in Death Valley convinced me of that. I did, the year before the failure, find out I had failed to replug the fan after service and got the bike really hot in a traffic jam. The bike never hiccuped or did anything to warn me, but I looked down and ... all bars. I angled over to the shoulder and rolled past stopped traffic to cool it off. Did I create the failure? Dunno, but I'm now always going to check the fan after service. The engine runs just like it did new (the reason I run synthetic oil).

From reading I've found that lots of bikes lose stators and regulators. I'd recommend a voltage monitor for any bike that has a magneto charging system.

 

The alternator always runs at full output. The regulator/rectifier converts excess electrical power to heat--that's how it controls the voltage by bleeding off some of the power through its silicon controlled rectifiers to ground. The better way, which is also bulkier and more expensive, is to use electromagnets instead of permanent magnets and the regulator controls the current through the electromagnets so just the needed power is produced. We don't have that.

Detonation only occurs when the gasoline octane is lower than the engine design calls for. Our stroms run fine on regular gas.

The burned areas at a failed stator are the result of the failure, not the cause of the failure--the short between windings happens first and causes the heat that chars the wire. They just aren't made very well, and aftermarket ones are made worse. The loosened magnets (only on the Vee???) are a real sign of poor manufacturing.

 

I lost my stator at 20,000 miles. I replaced it with OEM along with MOSFET regulator. There is a theory out there that the MOSFET regulator helps with the longevity of the stator. Don't know if it's true.

 

I hope that the Mosfet reg/rec is the answer as I am having to replace the stator on my '09 DL650ABS with only 40K miles. Does anyone have a better source than cheapcycleparts.com for a stator? I'm leaving on a 6K mile trip on Friday and need one ASAP.