Lights: what's the running cost

think more carefully -
on a typical bike the shunt resistor from the voltage regulator might be
approx 5ohms - the shunt resistor is then switched off automatically as the
lights are switched on- thus on some bikes by switching on just the side
lights you are drawing less current than with them off

the rest of your bad-tempered rant is fundamentally flawed too, but i fear
you may have a temper tantrum and pop a vital vain should you have to
further endure the audicity of someone not agreeing with you

cheers,
andy

 

" "

You really don't know steve, do you?

 

the energy lost

i'm not certain i understand you correctly, but i don't think so... i think
this is a very signicant loss with permanent magnets, i would say in reality
more like someone dabbing a brake on and off than your description - i would
liken your description (very loosely) to kicking over a single cylinder bike
with or without the plug in there..
with the plug in you have the hard to kick compression bit followed by the
helping expansion thrust - but overall much more work is require to spin it
than with no compression

yes, accepted- i just picked a basic setup as it seemed an easy example
cheers,
andy

 

think more carefully -

nah, lol
think i'd best go back to lurking ;-)

 

Most bikes don't use 'dump to earth' rectification any more, that went
out in the days of the Ark. These days many, if not most, bike
alternators are like car alternators and the electrical load is passed
on to the engine as mechanical load pretty much directly as demanded.

Permanent magnets are so yesterday, daddy-oh.

Oh, and it's 'vein', btw.
--
Dave
GS850x2 XS650 SE6a

Teach a man to fish and he and his pikey mates will have the
river cleaned out in a day.

 

now you've made me feel old :-(

 

and learn to post properly.

Bad temper, you haven't seen bad temper.

No my comments is based entirely upon your flawed understanding of the
basic principles of physics. Nothing for free and all that tosh.

 

The phrase I use is:

"The roads are a co-operative system" - ie if people have a degree of
co-operation it all flows a lot more smoothly.

And yes - that does mean that sometimes you have to give way to
someone..

Phil.

 

Ye-ess, but when kicking over an engine you've got some blow-by and
the increased piston side-thrust friction. An alternator is purely
rotary and has more-or-less even forces all round. I'm sure there will
be some mechanical loss though.

Ah.