1991 KDX 200. Lets talk electrical

Discussion specific to the 1989 - 1994 (E Series) KDX200 model sold in the USA
hbaker
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1991 KDX 200. Lets talk electrical

Post by hbaker »

Completely rebuilding a 91 with goal of making it street legal. It came with no light and I want to do LEDs all around.

I could think of 3 options A) rewind the state for a higher output then use a modern reg/rec to get the 12-14v dc I need, B) is it possible to rewind the state to output dc? Then use a regulator for 12v. Or. C) buy a completely new stator in which case where should I find the correct fit? When I search on eBay it's mostly out but stuff.
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1991 KDX 200. Lets talk electrical

Post by SS109 »

IMO, having done a street legal '90, rewinding the stator, adding a rectifier, and a small battery and/or capacitor is the easiest way to go.
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1991 KDX 200. Lets talk electrical

Post by hbaker »

Pit bike**

That's what I felt would be best, but you're saying add a battery or cap to handle the load and the stator continuously "tops it off"? A battery would be nice to run lights when the bike is off, what would be the advantages of a capacitor? Couldn't i use both too?
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1991 KDX 200. Lets talk electrical

Post by SS109 »

Yes, run everything through a battery or capacitor. Capacitors and batteries both help to smooth the current which is beneficial for bulbs and sensitive electronics. If you plan on charging phones, running a GPS, and/or LED's off of the bike you need to run one or the other. You can run both but really don't need to. Sounds like a battery is best for you since you want the lights to work when the bike isn't running.
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Re: 1991 KDX 200. Lets talk electrical

Post by hbaker »

Thank you! That's what seemed right. Any suggestions for a reg/rec? ever tried the economical ebay ones?
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1991 KDX 200. Lets talk electrical

Post by SS109 »

Haven't tried any of the cheap ones but they're really a pretty simple circuit so I wouldn't have a problem trying one. Just make sure it is rating to handle the load and you should be good.
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Re: 1991 KDX 200. Lets talk electrical

Post by hbaker »

now I just need to figure out a headlight to determine what my draw is going to be like. OEM tail light was 10W right?
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Re: 1991 KDX 200. Lets talk electrical

Post by Friedom »

Slow down there, cowboy.
On my 92, I run an LED tail Light and light bar headlight. I put a $10 regulator/rectifier on from a Chinese quad and it gives me all the light output I could ask for.
I do agree that a capacitor is good for smoothing out the voltage, but unless you're adding more than head and tail, you might not need to touch the stator.
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Re: 1991 KDX 200. Lets talk electrical

Post by SS109 »

Friedom wrote:Slow down there, cowboy.
On my 92, I run an LED tail Light and light bar headlight. I put a $10 regulator/rectifier on from a Chinese quad and it gives me all the light output I could ask for.
I do agree that a capacitor is good for smoothing out the voltage, but unless you're adding more than head and tail, you might not need to touch the stator.
I did the same as you when I did mine and didn't touch the stator. I don't know what you consider good lighting but I know mine was barely good enough to get home in the dark at speeds under 35mph. Plus some states require turn signals and I know all of them require a horn. Luckily mine was never checked by LEO's as the horn would barely work at speed and not at all at idle.

Like any project, the ends decide the means. Basic lighting the stock stator will do it... barely. Anything more and the bike really needs a more powerful stator. IMO, IME, and YMMV!
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Re: 1991 KDX 200. Lets talk electrical

Post by Friedom »

Good point on the horn and signals. Not all states are as lenient as sunny AZ.

My headlight carves a tunnel of daylight through the night. It's not "adequate", it's awesome.

If I were dual sporting it though, I would add a battery.
Still might not need to do stator rewind though, unless you're planning on using the horn, signals and brake all the time.
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Re: 1991 KDX 200. Lets talk electrical

Post by EPalmer »

Friedom wrote:Slow down there, cowboy.
On my 92, I run an LED tail Light and light bar headlight. I put a $10 regulator/rectifier on from a Chinese quad and it gives me all the light output I could ask for.
I do agree that a capacitor is good for smoothing out the voltage, but unless you're adding more than head and tail, you might not need to touch the stator.
Hi mate, I'm looking at swapping my standard lights to an LED bulb in the rear and an LED headlight, so it looks like I just have to install a rectifier?
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Re: 1991 KDX 200. Lets talk electrical

Post by Friedom »

EPalmer wrote:
Friedom wrote:Slow down there, cowboy.
On my 92, I run an LED tail Light and light bar headlight. I put a $10 regulator/rectifier on from a Chinese quad and it gives me all the light output I could ask for.
I do agree that a capacitor is good for smoothing out the voltage, but unless you're adding more than head and tail, you might not need to touch the stator.
Hi mate, I'm looking at swapping my standard lights to an LED bulb in the rear and an LED headlight, so it looks like I just have to install a rectifier?
Technically you could put LED bulbs in and not add a rectifier, but they would flicker more, only be running half the time, and may burn out.
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Re: 1991 KDX 200. Lets talk electrical

Post by EPalmer »

Friedom wrote:
EPalmer wrote:
Friedom wrote:Slow down there, cowboy.
On my 92, I run an LED tail Light and light bar headlight. I put a $10 regulator/rectifier on from a Chinese quad and it gives me all the light output I could ask for.
I do agree that a capacitor is good for smoothing out the voltage, but unless you're adding more than head and tail, you might not need to touch the stator.
Hi mate, I'm looking at swapping my standard lights to an LED bulb in the rear and an LED headlight, so it looks like I just have to install a rectifier?
Technically you could put LED bulbs in and not add a rectifier, but they would flicker more, only be running half the time, and may burn out.
So the rectifier just goes in line in the wiring?
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Re: 1991 KDX 200. Lets talk electrical

Post by Friedom »

EPalmer wrote:
Friedom wrote:
EPalmer wrote:
Hi mate, I'm looking at swapping my standard lights to an LED bulb in the rear and an LED headlight, so it looks like I just have to install a rectifier?
Technically you could put LED bulbs in and not add a rectifier, but they would flicker more, only be running half the time, and may burn out.
So the rectifier just goes in line in the wiring?
That's how I did it. Ground and lighting wire into the rectifier, pixie dust comes out! I mounted it on the down tube.

Conveniently The front end is off, so here's a picture.

Note: the stock regulator is not hooked up.

Image
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Re: 1991 KDX 200. Lets talk electrical

Post by 1989KDXNH »

I am planning on setting up my bike to dual sport. I already purchased a 25w headlight bulb. that will be only light running off the bike. I will be purchasing led combination taillight with stop and directional built in. along with two led directionals for the front, A waterproof buzzer to act as a horn, two mirrors, mounts, brake master with built in switch, pressure switch for rear brake, led directional relay, handlebar switch, two 1800mah batteries with charger.

I also thought of doing a stator rewind with regulator/rectifier. For how much I will be on the street, this setup will work fine.

I don't plan to run the bike at night, so the battery should last a long time. Plus I will have a spare battery for weekend rides.
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Re: 1991 KDX 200. Lets talk electrical

Post by 6 Riders »

Why don't you just order the kit from RMATV, it's only around $200 and will save you the wiring nightmare you are getting into. Just add a second hydraulic brake switch for the rear brake. I use an 1800mha battery from batteries plus to power my kit, and can go for days without a recharge.

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Re: 1991 KDX 200. Lets talk electrical

Post by GOT WOODS? »

This is a response to the posting above, I can't seem to get the hang of the quoting thing......


/quote]So the rectifier just goes in line in the wiring?[/quote]That's how I did it. Ground and lighting wire into the rectifier, pixie dust comes out! I mounted it on the down tube.

Conveniently The front end is off, so here's a picture.

Note: the stock regulator is not hooked up.

Image[/quote]

[/quote]


HELP!
On my 2003 220 I did the lighting kit from RMATV and then I added an LED headlight after modifying the bulb plug from a 2 wire to a 3 wire to get the hi/lo beams. I bought a rectifier that looks exactly like the one in the picture above but the instructions were useless (to me anyway...) so I did not hook it up. I hooked the LED headlight up to the bikes existing lighting circuit, not the new battery-driven horn/directional/tailight circuit. The led will come on when the bike starts but it flickers at idle, then goes out completely when I rev the bike off idle. It looks like I have to hook up the rectifier but can someone explain what wires go where?

The instructions say the following:
HOW TO WIRE IT:
-Red: "+" Output, to (battery +)
-Green: "-", to (battery -)
-Yellow, Pink: AC input, connect to magneto coil

So I'm guessing that I want to hook the wires up as follows:
-The red I hook up to the power input wire on the new hi/lo beam switch on the handlebars. This would then put power out to either the hi or lo beam at the LED depending on the switch position.
-The green to the LED's ground wire- but do I also connect this wire back to what was the original stock headlight's ground wire which I am currently using?
-The yellow and pink wires, I am assuming one of them has to connect to the original headlight's incoming power wire to energize the circuit, but where does the other wire connect to? Do I connect it to the original ground wire? Or do I have to go back to the stator and I'll find two wires there to connect these two wires to?

This is the unit I bought:


I noted that the fellow above said that his stock regulator is not hooked up. Do I need to disconnect mine? And why did the stock regulator not take care of this issue?

Thanks in advance for any help!
2003 KDX200: Bone stock

2003 KDX 220:
Boyesen reeds
Gnarly Gold Series pipe
Turbine Core 2 silencer
Fat Bars
Super Sport IMS pegs
Cycra Probend hand guards
Tusk dualsport light kit
LED headlamp
Boyesen Factory Racing mag cover
Airbox snorkel removed
Wiesco piston and rings
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Re: 1991 KDX 200. Lets talk electrical

Post by Friedom »

GOT WOODS? wrote:This is a response to the posting above, I can't seem to get the hang of the quoting thing......


/quote]So the rectifier just goes in line in the wiring?
That's how I did it. Ground and lighting wire into the rectifier, pixie dust comes out! I mounted it on the down tube.

Conveniently The front end is off, so here's a picture.

Note: the stock regulator is not hooked up.

Image[/quote]

[/quote]


HELP!
On my 2003 220 I did the lighting kit from RMATV and then I added an LED headlight after modifying the bulb plug from a 2 wire to a 3 wire to get the hi/lo beams. I bought a rectifier that looks exactly like the one in the picture above but the instructions were useless (to me anyway...) so I did not hook it up. I hooked the LED headlight up to the bikes existing lighting circuit, not the new battery-driven horn/directional/tailight circuit. The led will come on when the bike starts but it flickers at idle, then goes out completely when I rev the bike off idle. It looks like I have to hook up the rectifier but can someone explain what wires go where?

The instructions say the following:
HOW TO WIRE IT:
-Red: "+" Output, to (battery +)
-Green: "-", to (battery -)
-Yellow, Pink: AC input, connect to magneto coil

So I'm guessing that I want to hook the wires up as follows:
-The red I hook up to the power input wire on the new hi/lo beam switch on the handlebars. This would then put power out to either the hi or lo beam at the LED depending on the switch position.
-The green to the LED's ground wire- but do I also connect this wire back to what was the original stock headlight's ground wire which I am currently using?
-The yellow and pink wires, I am assuming one of them has to connect to the original headlight's incoming power wire to energize the circuit, but where does the other wire connect to? Do I connect it to the original ground wire? Or do I have to go back to the stator and I'll find two wires there to connect these two wires to?

This is the unit I bought:


I noted that the fellow above said that his stock regulator is not hooked up. Do I need to disconnect mine? And why did the stock regulator not take care of this issue?

Thanks in advance for any help![/quote]

Let's build an understanding here:

* The stock system generates AC, alternating current.
* The LED light needs DC, direct current.
* The stock regulator regulates how much voltage is going to the light.
* Your light flickers at idle because it's on on every other cycle when the AC is going the correct direction. You can destroy LEDs running AC through them. Some handle it, some stop working.
* The rectifier converts AC to DC. In order to do this, you feed the two AC inputs into it(to the yellow and pink) and use the rectified(converted to DC) hot and ground wires coming out of it to power and ground your lights.
* The unit you got is both a regulator and a rectifier. It replaces the stock regulator, but also rectifies the current into DC.

Yes you do want to disconnect your stock regulator as you're replacing it with the regulator/rectifier. They can produce some weird results if both hooked up. There's a voltage drop in the process of rectifying, so the regulator adjusts it AFTER the rectifier.

As far as I understand, this is how it all works. You'll still get a little flicker at idle unless you add a small battery or capacitor to smooth out the voltage.
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Re: 1991 KDX 200. Lets talk electrical

Post by GOT WOODS? »

Thanks, I really appreciate this info!

I am still having an issue figuring out which existing bike wires to plug into the yellow and pink ones on the new regulator/rectifier. I am looking at the wiring diagram and there is only one wire coming out of the lighting coil (the wiring diagram shows 2 other wires coming out as well and I am assuming that they go the the ignition/CDI circuit and I shouldn't connect to them). The existing regulator connects to the wire that comes from the lighting coil and which then connects as well to the head and tail lamp. The other wire that the existing regulator connects to is the ground. I get that I have to connect the hot and ground wires (red and green) of the new regulator/rectifier to the headlight and headlight switch, but do I hook either the yellow or pink wire to the wire coming out of the lighting coil and the other to ground, or is there something else I am supposed to hook the remaining wire up to?

Thanks again!
2003 KDX200: Bone stock

2003 KDX 220:
Boyesen reeds
Gnarly Gold Series pipe
Turbine Core 2 silencer
Fat Bars
Super Sport IMS pegs
Cycra Probend hand guards
Tusk dualsport light kit
LED headlamp
Boyesen Factory Racing mag cover
Airbox snorkel removed
Wiesco piston and rings
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Re: 1991 KDX 200. Lets talk electrical

Post by Friedom »

The two wires currently connected to the regulator get connected to the new regulator/rectifier.
It seems kind of odd, as they don't seem like they're both "hot", but it's AC, so every cycle it flips going hot to ground/ground to hot. They both need to be connected to the new regulator/rectifier in order for it to have something to work with.
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