How much can you draw from a stock charging system?

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ACA332

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I've added an oil cooler to my warrior, and picked up a fan from a Polaris outlaw that fits perfectly. I looked up specs and they say it draws anywhere from 5 to 6 amps depending on how hard it has to suck.

Do the lights draw from the charging system? I think they draw about 5 amps themselves.

How much can I draw from the battery/charging system before it'll start to drag down my battery or overheat my stator?
 
The stator will produce 110 watts max but I don't know about the amount of amps
110 watts / 12volts = 9.16 amps.

Service manual (I found this after posting the thread) states it at 12 amps at 3000 rpm. The main rectifier is rated at 15 amps. I should be okay, as far as I can tell, to use the fan while the headlights are off. And should I ever decide to switch to LED lighting I'd be golden!

Anyone else with input feel free to still chime in. Last thing I want to do is toast my brand new stator!
 
Well, I'm not sure this was a good idea. I had a 10 amp fuse in line with the battery, and should have taken note when I kept blowing those. It's a motor, so logically the starting current is going to be much more than the running current. A slow blow fuse would have been ideal, maybe 15 amp at that. Anyways, I decided to see how the charging system would handle the lights and fan at the same time.

Worked fine for a little while, I had a voltage meter hooked up and the regulator was compensating. Then suddenly the voltage dropped right down. My regulator was really hot, much warmer than it's ever been. I also lost all power in the system, and the starter wouldn't kick back in.

I checked the 15 amp main fuse, and it had blown open. I replaced it with a 15, turned the ignition on, turned the lights on and after half a second of dim orange glowing, the fuse blew again. Tried it with a 20 amp one, blew again.

At this point, I thought for sure my regulator had shorted out to ground internally, so I removed it and replaced the fuse again. This time, the lights came up and the fuse didn't blow. I reconnected the regulator... and the fuse didn't blow. I reinstalled it onto the frame, didn't blow.

I pulled all the relays and connecters apart, cleaned them with contact cleaner, filled the pins with dielectric grease, and noticed one of the wires had been rubbing on the frame. I taped it up, reinstalled everything, and it was fine again.

I'm not exactly sure what happened. Maybe it was a coincidence that that bare wire had finally shorted out right when I installed the fan. Maybe the fan really does draw too much, and damaged the regulator. But temporarily? I can't be sure, but I'll definitely be searching for a less powerful fan. Unfortunately.

Anyways, that's a heads up for anyone else considering this idea.
 
Here's a thought - could we replace our headlight and tail light bulbs with Light Emitting Diodes (LED) and save some power there?
AND have brighter lights, a sharper updated look with less power?
Thinking of this option for my machine.
 
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LEDs are an option, but I like the beam pattern of the stock ones. Lights up the trails excellent. It's still up in the air though with this fan. Without a proper way to measure exactly how much current it draws while running, I don't want to take the chance and fry something.
 
Hey, update for anyone who reads this. I was having some electrical gremlins that would haunt me on and off. The main fuse kept blowing again, and so I pulled the harness to check it over.

In the back, I found a green and white wire that had rubbed through so thin, there was a single strand left connecting the circuit. Also, at some point the rear light had been disconnected, and the wires taped up and taped to the frame. The connecters had rubbed together and made contact, leaving an obvious black mark from the arcing. I suspect that's the reason behind my fuse continually blowing, not the fan.
 
mine would do that, i found it to be dirty bulbs.

now for the fan, hook it straight up to the batt with a 15 amp inline fuse, then letter budge! dont leave the fan on without the motor though, i can ell you now, thats a bad idea!
 
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