A thought about the standard regulator / rectifier

[tankslappa]

We all know the standard Honda rectifier/regulator is a bit pants, and it's a good idea to swap it out for something a bit more able with a big heat sink.

However, whilst tinkering about the other day it dawned on me that the Honda one does actually have a heatsink, the rear subframe that it is bolted to, so I took it off to have a look.

The entire back side of the Honda unit is a metal plate, so I cleaned it up with a wire brush, did the same to the plate on the rear subframe where it bolts and then looked round for a suitable heat transfer medium... Not willing the blow half a ton of expensive arctic silver techie stuff on it I went for the cheaper option, copper grease. Smeared a thin coat of that on the back and bolted it back up nice and tight. Sure enough copper grease oozed out round the edges, so it should be nice and close to the subframe plate. Cleaned up the excess, checked I didn't have any on the loom connector, and plugged it back together.

The result is the rear subframe plate get noticeably warmer than it did, which means more heat is being transferred away from the regulator, which can only help the poor little thing. (Maybe I should have mounted it into the bottom of the seat as a elbow warmer!).

Anyway, I'm not saying that you should ditch plans for replacing the standard unit, it's still way too overloaded, but if you're waiting for your new uprated regulator to arrive, you could do worse than to make life easier for the standard unit.

[Richy]

Bolted my standard RR to the subframe with some thermal paste a while back. still seems to be working fine so far.

That's more than likely cursed it now, so I'm off to find a replacement..

[benny hedges]

you could also get an inexpensive ally heatsink from maplins or somewhere similar and fix it to the r/r

[sirch345]

Some even fitted a PC fan to an original non finned rectifier;-
http://www.burniemorgan.com/firestorm/reg_heatsink.html

Chris.

[tankslappa]

Some even fitted a PC fan to an original non finned rectifier;-
http://www.burniemorgan.com/firestorm/reg_heatsink.html

Chris.

That's inventive, maybe a little excessive! Just a good finned heatsink mounted to it should do the job, the trick is to get a good thermal bond so the heat can actually move from the regulator into the heatsink. Who know how long my copper greased regular reg will last (doubt I'll find out, watching a few yamaha ones on flea-bay).

If you do want to mod the original then cpc/farnell sell a good two part thermal bonding compound - http://cpc.farnell.com/electrolube/tbs2 ... dp/SA01013

[sirch345]

That's inventive, maybe a little excessive!

I agree, easier to fit a finned rectifier IMHO

Chris.

[lumpyv]

you could also get an inexpensive ally heatsink from maplins or somewhere similar and fix it to the r/r

i have done this with some heat sink stuff off a circuit board fixed with silicon and heat transfer paste.