1985 Maxim-X Regulator

Does anyone know what type of voltage regulator the Max-X uses? I would presume that it's either switched field or perminant magnet w/ shunt coils on the rotor, but I don't actually have a clue. Thanks in advance.

 

Do you mean Alternator?

 

To some extent =)

To the best of my knowledge, some charging systems regulate the voltage by switching the alternator field coils on and off - preventing generation of excess voltage, others short alternator rotor coils on and off - preventing generation of excess voltage, and others still use a zener or some such at its reverse breakdown threshold shorting extra voltage to ground. I'm just trying to figure out which system the Max-X uses.

 

I dunno, Rick... his initial question made it sound like he was referring to the regulator/rectifier, which is solid state.

A quick read of the XJCD tells me... well, read it for yourself.

"First, the regulator must know what voltage is coming out of the
alternator. So it looks at a brown wire that comes from the front of
the bike via the ignition switch. This wire gets its power from the
ignition switch and also feeds the fuses in the secondary circuits
(ignition, headlights, etc.) The ignition switch gets ITS power from
both the rectified output of the alternator and the battery (red
wires). This is a very long loop (see Battery Overcharging for
details.)

The regulator looks at the voltage on the brown wire, then pushes an
appropriate amount of current through the rotor windings to make the
output voltage (red wire) right. On these bikes the rotor wires are
green and brown (actually the same brown wire as above), and are
connected to the regulator/rectifier box. The green wire is the one
that does all the work. If you measure the voltage on the green wire
(between green and ground) you should see it go from about 1.8 volts
at 2000 rpm up to 9-11 volts when you rev the engine, as the
regulator does its thing."

Interpret that how you will - the article I read made no mention of Maxim-X, though. Cilynx, given what you just wrote, I'm going to take a wild stab and say None Of The Above.