New Quirks After Installing E-Advancer

[ninskrillz]

Also the kicker didn't kick back at all with the reg unplugged, can't say for certain that it wouldn't but I kicked it over about 10 times without it kicking back

 

[pamcopete]

nins...,

The regulator needs a good battery to smooth out the pulses from the PMA. If the battery is bad or too small, then the high voltage pulses cause the battery voltage to go high which then "fools" the regulator into "thinking" the voltage is too high so the regulator tries to lower the voltage and it does this by providing a path to ground, which then pulls the battery voltage too low to run the ignition, so the ignition, which just got the OK to work, suddenly stops working, which can produce a spark if it occurs when the transistor is on, and the spark can occur on the compression stroke and produce a kickback and / or ignite the mixture in the carb and blow smoke. This cycle repeats with each attempt at starting. With the regulator disconnected, the battery is then free to provide a smooth voltage to the ignition even if it is a bit low because the PAMCO will work with 6 to 8 volts. This whole cycle is made worse at low engine speeds like when attempting to start.

There may or may not be anything wrong with the PMA or the regulator and, of course, different PMA's and regulators will behave differently. The one certain thing is if you have a proper sized battery and not one of those deck of cards sized batteries, the problem will probably not occur. Also, you may not have the problem if you use a capacitor instead of the battery.

 

[ninskrillz]

nins...,

The regulator needs a good battery to smooth out the pulses from the PMA. If the battery is bad or too small, then the high voltage pulses cause the battery voltage to go high which then "fools" the regulator into "thinking" the voltage is too high so the regulator tries to lower the voltage and it does this by providing a path to ground, which then pulls the battery voltage too low to run the ignition, so the ignition, which just got the OK to work, suddenly stops working, which can produce a spark if it occurs when the transistor is on, and the spark can occur on the compression stroke and produce a kickback and / or ignite the mixture in the carb and blow smoke. This cycle repeats with each attempt at starting. With the regulator disconnected, the battery is then free to provide a smooth voltage to the ignition even if it is a bit low because the PAMCO will work with 6 to 8 volts. This whole cycle is made worse at low engine speeds like when attempting to start.

There may or may not be anything wrong with the PMA or the regulator and, of course, different PMA's and regulators will behave differently. The one certain thing is if you have a proper sized battery and not one of those deck of cards sized batteries, the problem will probably not occur. Also, you may not have the problem if you use a capacitor instead of the battery.

The battery I have is a 5.1ah duracell sealed battery, what size is recommended?

 

[pamcopete]

The battery I have is a 5.1amp duracell sealed battery, what size is recommended?

The minimum size should have some relationship to the output current of your PMA minus the load times ten. Example would be a 200 Watt Alternator producing 200/14.5 = 13.75 Amps. A typical load is 12 Amps leaving 1.75 Amps to charge the battery so the convention is to charge a battery with no more than 10% of its Amp Hour rating so that would mean a 1.75 X 10 = 17.5 AH battery except that the battery will only draw that much current if it is discharged and the convention there is 10.5 Volts, which shouldn't happen in normal operation, so we round it down to a 14 Amp Hour battery, which is a stock battery size, size meaning Amp Hour capacity, not physical size.

In the case of a 5.1 AH battery we are starting off with 3 times the conventional allowed charging current and due to its smaller capacity, it is more likely that it will reach the accepted voltage of 10.5 to be considered discharged while waiting at the traffic light, so then when you speed off on the green, it's possible that you will send 3 times the recommended current to charge the battery which will cause overheating because the battery will convert the excess current to heat and if you do this often enough, the battery will be damaged or destroyed.

In other words, your bikes electrical system has to be balanced. You can't just go and install a smaller battery without some consequences, but the battery may last a while before dying completely and that is why we see tons of posts here where the member states that his bike ran just great for, like, 6 months but now ALL OF A SUDDEN he has problems. Well, it wasn't all of a sudden.

Then, to make matter worse, members will install a huge PMA with 300 watts of output along with a smaller battery and install LED's to reduce the current, all of which now goes to the tiny battery (tiny in terms of capacity, not physical size)

If you turn off the headlight while stopped at the red light, the battery will not discharge as much and therefore not suck up all those extra amps when you go. One way to do this is to use a relay connected to your neutral switch to automatically turn off the headlight when in neutral. That's the arrangement I have on two of my bikes even though I do not have a tiny battery or a PMA.

Lastly you should always put your tiny battery on a trickle charger overnight so it starts the day fully charged. (tiny in terms of capacity, not physical size)

 

[ninskrillz]

The minimum size should have some relationship to the output current of your PMA minus the load times ten. Example would be a 200 Watt Alternator producing 200/14.5 = 13.75 Amps. A typical load is 12 Amps leaving 1.75 Amps to charge the battery so the convention is to charge a battery with no more than 10% of its Amp Hour rating so that would mean a 1.75 X 10 = 17.5 AH battery except that the battery will only draw that much current if it is discharged and the convention there is 10.5 Volts, which shouldn't happen in normal operation, so we round it down to a 14 Amp Hour battery, which is a stock battery size, size meaning Amp Hour capacity, not physical size.

In the case of a 5.1 AH battery we are starting off with 3 times the conventional allowed charging current and due to its smaller capacity, it is more likely that it will reach the accepted voltage of 10.5 to be considered discharged while waiting at the traffic light, so then when you speed off on the green, it's possible that you will send 3 times the recommended current to charge the battery which will cause overheating because the battery will convert the excess current to heat and if you do this often enough, the battery will be damaged or destroyed.

In other words, your bikes electrical system has to be balanced. You can't just go and install a smaller battery without some consequences, but the battery may last a while before dying completely and that is why we see tons of posts here where the member states that his bike ran just great for, like, 6 months but now ALL OF A SUDDEN he has problems. Well, it wasn't all of a sudden.

Then, to make matter worse, members will install a huge PMA with 300 watts of output along with a smaller battery and install LED's to reduce the current, all of which now goes to the tiny battery (tiny in terms of capacity, not physical size)

If you turn off the headlight while stopped at the red light, the battery will not discharge as much and therefore not suck up all those extra amps when you go. One way to do this is to use a relay connected to your neutral switch to automatically turn off the headlight when in neutral. That's the arrangement I have on two of my bikes even though I do not have a tiny battery or a PMA.

Lastly you should always put your tiny battery on a trickle charger overnight so it starts the day fully charged. (tiny in terms of capacity, not physical size)

Thanks a lot for the explaination, makes perfect sense. Unfortunately, the bikes battery tray wont really allow for it to take a bigger battery atm, so maybe in the meantime I will put the reg/rec on a switch to allow for easier starts. Then once I start changing things up put a bigger battery in.

 

[davetherave]

Charged up my battery, seems fine now.

 

[Metal]

Great thread! i have a banshee PMA with a cbr600 reg/rec. I installed the pamco and e-advance last week and experianced these issue myself. I just took my bike for a 10 minute ride and got stuck with a discharged battery. My bike had been sitting for few day so the battery was not at full charge. I also get the same experiance when doing a cold start. Back fire, smoke, 6 or 7 kick start. The other problem im having is low idle engine cut out.

Pete, if i replace my battery with a capacitor will this fix my issue? or ad a capacitor to the system and keep the battery? What brand capacitor do you recommend?

On the up side the rev band is so smooth. Setting the timming was easy and I can feel the diffrence in the hotter spark. The best part is both cylinders run as though the point gaps are perfect.

 

[Metal]

I should mention my battery is a 12v / .10 Amph a little bigger than the deck of cards size but still small enough to be damaged by the charging system i have.

 

[Mikeyoung1138]

Why does it say I shouldn't use a Pamco e advance with the capacitor any reason?

 

[gggGary]

It appears the combo of a capacitor and typical voltage regulator do not do a good enough job of keeping voltage in the 12-14 range consistently. A battery is much better at sopping up voltage spikes than a capacitor. Some electronic items (and light bulbs) respond to those spikes by waving goodbye with a smoke signal.

 

[pamcopete]

Why does it say I shouldn't use a Pamco e advance with the capacitor any reason?

If you search for problems with the PAMCO and a PMA setup, especially with the capacitor, you will find lots of threads that generally result in the PMA, voltage regulator, capacitor or a tiny battery being the problem rather than the PAMCO as there are a lot of ways to screw up the installation of the PMA. It's possible that MikesXS and TCBros are taking the easy way out by not recommending the E-Advancer with their PMA. In the case of MikesXS I believe that their issue is the new capacitor that they have just introduced.

However, as you and many others have found, you can run the PAMCO E-Advancer with a PMA and capacitor if the installation is done right.

So, please describe your setup including the brand names of all the components so that others may be guided in the right direction.