On the blurb from the p.o. of my mew kat he mentions +60% overcharging.
A mate from a bmw forum had this to say. Is this that common a problem?
Rosskko - there's a dead-easy fix for that overcharging problem - two, actually.
1. The cheap one. Always ride with the headlight on and only ever ride it with a known-good battery.
2. The more involved one. I used to use secondhand late 1980's-onwards Honda CB-series regulator/rectifiers (the CDI equipped bikes) but one of these will do.
Remove the Kat's regulator and rectifier units.
Connect the Kat's green/white, blue/white and yellow alternator wires to the three yellow wires on the Honda unit. Depending on the year, the Kat's alternator wires could be just blue, red and yellow.
Connect the Suzuki orange to the Honda black.
Connect the Suzuki black/white to the Honda green.
Connect the Suzuki red to the Honda red.
The problem is caused by piss-poor regulator design. In summary:
During the day the green/white winding is generating power which is doing nothing. It has to go somewhere, so it's dumped as excess heat.
The blue/white winding is rectified but not regulated. It relies on a good battery to provide the regulation, so if the battery is the slightest bit out of condition the volts go way up. More excess heat.
Only the yellow winding is properly regulated.
I seem to have spent most of the late Eighties and early Nineties converting Suzukis to Honda reg/rec units because of the Suzuki propensity to first blowing the reg and then taking the alternator with it as collateral damage. So much so that the local bike breakers started putting up his Honda reg/rec prices...
