Hello everyone,
I?ve only been on the marine scene for just over a month due to recently acquiring a 16 foot 1971 Crestliner with an Evinrude 60hp motor. This thing hadn?t run in quite a while and has changed hands several times due to the inability of the owners to affect proper repairs to the motor and boat.
The boat was in need of a re-wiring which I am just completing. Also the remote was missing a bunch of parts, including the cover, key switch, horn, and electric switch escutcheon cover plate. This stuff is not cheap and I have spent several hundred dollars already and have not even started the engine as of yet. The engine also has a bad Amplifier Assembly, a bad Rectifier Assembly and a bad Clipper Assembly. The Clipper Assembly I heard is not needed when upgrading to a new Amplifier Assembly so it will save me $250 dollars.
I?ve also been reading on here about the many problems people have been having with their charging systems and the dreaded Rectifier. So I will try and demystify the charging system and this most important part, the Rectifier.
The Rectifier as a lot of us know is used to convert Alternating Current (AC) to Direct Current (DC). It does this by using 4 Diodes arranged in such a way as to allow only Positive flow of electrons to be tapped from the AC and applied to the Positive terminal of the Rectifier, and allows Negative flow of electrons to be tapped from the AC and applied to the Negative terminal of the Rectifier.
I?ve included a pictorial of a Rectifier to demonstrate this theory.
And now to the Alternator or Magneto as it?s often called. The alternator is a generator, creating Alternating Current as magnets attached to a Flywheel, rotate around some copper windings or Stator, exciting the electrons and causing a pulse of electricity in the form of AC whenever the magnet passes by one of these coiled windings.
OK so the engine has started and the flywheel is turning, and the magnets are passing by the coiled windings and exciting these coils and the coils are now producing the Alternating Current. But we can?t use this Alternating Current to charge our batteries and run all our accessories. It?s the wrong kind of voltage.
Enter the Rectifier: With the rectifier in the circuit, out pours our nice DC current, ready to be used to charge our batteries and run our accessories. Isn?t science great!!!
So the Rectifier gets connected to the 2 AC wires coming from the Stator, generally the 2 yellow wires. And out comes Positive DC voltage from the red wire. The Negative DC comes from the side of the outer case of the Rectifier, in most cases. Some Rectifiers will have 4 wires, 2 yellows, a red and a black wire. The black wire being the ground wire. This is the simple charging circuit.
On bigger engines, there might be a regulator added after the Rectifier to tone down all that power. On smaller engines, the battery is used as sort of a capacitor to smooth out the bumps and keep the power at a reasonable level. This is why you need to keep your battery fully charged or the charging circuit may overload and fry, just trying to charge that spent battery. Hopefully the 20 amp fuse blows before this happens. You did see that fuse in there right? The fuse is there to protect the charging circuit.
So that?s my 2 cents worth. Hope this helps out. And feel free to correct me and/or add to this thread.
Thanks
I?ve only been on the marine scene for just over a month due to recently acquiring a 16 foot 1971 Crestliner with an Evinrude 60hp motor. This thing hadn?t run in quite a while and has changed hands several times due to the inability of the owners to affect proper repairs to the motor and boat.
The boat was in need of a re-wiring which I am just completing. Also the remote was missing a bunch of parts, including the cover, key switch, horn, and electric switch escutcheon cover plate. This stuff is not cheap and I have spent several hundred dollars already and have not even started the engine as of yet. The engine also has a bad Amplifier Assembly, a bad Rectifier Assembly and a bad Clipper Assembly. The Clipper Assembly I heard is not needed when upgrading to a new Amplifier Assembly so it will save me $250 dollars.
I?ve also been reading on here about the many problems people have been having with their charging systems and the dreaded Rectifier. So I will try and demystify the charging system and this most important part, the Rectifier.
The Rectifier as a lot of us know is used to convert Alternating Current (AC) to Direct Current (DC). It does this by using 4 Diodes arranged in such a way as to allow only Positive flow of electrons to be tapped from the AC and applied to the Positive terminal of the Rectifier, and allows Negative flow of electrons to be tapped from the AC and applied to the Negative terminal of the Rectifier.
I?ve included a pictorial of a Rectifier to demonstrate this theory.
And now to the Alternator or Magneto as it?s often called. The alternator is a generator, creating Alternating Current as magnets attached to a Flywheel, rotate around some copper windings or Stator, exciting the electrons and causing a pulse of electricity in the form of AC whenever the magnet passes by one of these coiled windings.
OK so the engine has started and the flywheel is turning, and the magnets are passing by the coiled windings and exciting these coils and the coils are now producing the Alternating Current. But we can?t use this Alternating Current to charge our batteries and run all our accessories. It?s the wrong kind of voltage.
Enter the Rectifier: With the rectifier in the circuit, out pours our nice DC current, ready to be used to charge our batteries and run our accessories. Isn?t science great!!!
So the Rectifier gets connected to the 2 AC wires coming from the Stator, generally the 2 yellow wires. And out comes Positive DC voltage from the red wire. The Negative DC comes from the side of the outer case of the Rectifier, in most cases. Some Rectifiers will have 4 wires, 2 yellows, a red and a black wire. The black wire being the ground wire. This is the simple charging circuit.
On bigger engines, there might be a regulator added after the Rectifier to tone down all that power. On smaller engines, the battery is used as sort of a capacitor to smooth out the bumps and keep the power at a reasonable level. This is why you need to keep your battery fully charged or the charging circuit may overload and fry, just trying to charge that spent battery. Hopefully the 20 amp fuse blows before this happens. You did see that fuse in there right? The fuse is there to protect the charging circuit.
So that?s my 2 cents worth. Hope this helps out. And feel free to correct me and/or add to this thread.
Thanks
