Kohler Lighting / Charging System

bob58o

Forum Newbie
Joined
Jul 17, 2021
Threads
1
Messages
1
Please help if you can. I feel lost. I have put a Kohler Flyweel 1702530S and Kohler Stator 1708509 on something like a Honda GX 200 clone engine. I have added a Honda clone electric starter motor and I have a Honda clone keyswitch box as well. The Kohler stator has a single wire output. This puts out an AC voltage signial. Around 30V RMS AC at 3600 RPM if I remember correctly. I am fairly confident the other end of the coil is "case grounded" to the engine block through the mounting holes. I am trying to use a full wave rectifier / voltage regulator, but not sure how this would be possible without cutting and unwinding the stator coils to access the other end of the coil winding.

Are these small engine starter motors "case grounded" DC? How to I isololate AC from DC if the starter motor is "case grounded" using DC and the stator coil is using the block as Neutral delivering AC.

The keyswitch box that came with the starter motor has wiring included that has a diode to half wave rectify the AC voltage from the stator. I have successfully hooked the system up with battery, fuel pump, light, starter motor, and with only using the diode to rectify the voltage signal - everything seemed to work fine. But if I want to turn higher RPMs (maybe 5500 or 6000), the DC voltage through the diode measured across the battery gets up near or above 16Volts or 17Volts if I remember correctly.

So if the Stator is using the block as AC neutral and the starter motor is using the block as DC ground, wouldn't a problem have shown itself in the testing I already did?
I wanted to replace the diode with a 4 wire full wave rectifier regulator to charge a battery. I was going to use the stator output as one of the RR AC inputs. I was going to wire the other AC input of the RR to the block (as to use the same "neutral" that the stator is using. Then I planned on running the DC + to the + of the battery and the DC- to the - side of the battery. The light and fuel pump would have DC + and - wires that ran all the way to the battery (as opposed to grounding to the frame and grounding the battery- to the frame).

I was told that since the coil was grounded to the block and the starter motor is grounded to the block, I would have issues. But I think the way I had it set up before (using just a diode) would have shown issues the same way as if I wired it with the rectifier / regulator. I was told the only way to make it work properly would be to cut the stator coil and unwind it until you could access the other end to make a lead out of it.

If there is something I am missing or don't understand, please help. I know it is a Frankenstein project and this is more of an electrical engineering question using lawnmower parts.

Bob
 

ILENGINE

Lawn Pro
Joined
May 6, 2010
Threads
39
Messages
9,828
You can't get full wave rectified output without both stator leads connected to the regulator

Most small engines are pushing their limits at 4000 rpm without the factory smoke coming out. So without major modifications to the internals the engine will go boom shortly.

Both the starter and the other end of the stator are both grounded to the engine block, it follows the path of least resistance back to the battery, therefore in general terms that don't interfere with each other
 
Top