On Wed, 16 Feb 2011 23:15:01 -0500, GeoLane at PTD dot NET GeoLane at
PTD dot NET wrote:


On Tue, 15 Feb 2011 22:53:18 -0500, GeoLane at PTD dot NET GeoLane at
PTD dot NET wrote:

That's not the problem though. It's putting out 16V, which I suspect
will fry the little U1 battery.


On Wed, 16 Feb 2011 20:16:20 +0700, john B.
wrote:

Rectifying the output of a small engine's alternator and feeding
straight to the battery is very common. Nearly all of the smaller
Japanese motorcycles are made that way,

What I'd is to fire things up and check the voltage at the battery
terminals, if the actual battery voltage doesn't get over about 14
volts then I wouldn't worry about it. My guess is that you'll be
getting closer to 14 volts with the engine running.

It's feeding 16V to the battery when it's running and the battery is
connected.

How many amps might I anticipate being sent to the battery? I didn't
have much success measuring the amps last evening, but I may have time
to try that again over the weekend. I don't want to fry my VOM. I
had tried on the 10A setting and didn't get a reading. I dropped to
the next lowest range - 500 mA, but still didn't get a reading.

RWL

You mean that with the engine running you measure the voltage across
the battery and it reads 16 volts?

I would be very leery of checking amperage with a multimeter. they
usually have almost insignificant ranges for cars n stuff.

But you don't really need to know the amperage as the voltage will
tell you all you need to know. Your maximum charging voltage should be
about 14.1 - 14.2 for a 12 volt battery. If you hold the voltage to
that level the amperage will be safe.