Solid State Rectifier/Regulator Install

blargsplat

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Hey Guys,

Having a bit of trouble with my charging system in my 1982 xs400 Heritage Special. I had a bad stator, then replaced it and got tons of energy out of it. Great. When testing (the 3 white wires of the) the new stator output after installing it, I noticed that the battery was overcharging. Naturally I turned to the Regulator, which I assumed was dead. Instead of fiddling around with used parts, I decided to buy a brand new solid state Rectifier/Regulator. This one: http://www.ebay.com/itm/151868415537

Everything seams pretty plug and play, 3 white, a red, a black and a green and a brown. Same as the two original separate components except only one ground wire cause its all one unit. So I hook up these wires to the corresponding colors, and as soon as i plug the brown wire in, my main 20volt fuse blows. I narrowed it down to the brown wire cause nothing bad seems to happen with all the other wires hooked up, as soon as the brown is connected the fuse blows. I capped the browns (coming out of the R/R and the bike) and tested with all the other wires connected and everything seemed to run as it should. Battery was getting charged, capped off at about 14.7, then smoke and dark blood colored goo came out of the the new R/R unit. Blew the damn thing up.

I ordered another one, as I'm convinced I hooked it up wrong. The only instructions I can find are these on Mike's xs for hooking up a solid state R/R, they are for a 650.

Hopefully that link works, sorry if I did that wrong. Can anyone tell me what the little grey box the green and brown wires are going to from the R/R is? I've asked 3 motorcycle "guru level" electricians and they are totally stumped.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. I do plan on rewiring this thing next year, but for now I really just need to get it on the road.
 
Can anyone tell me what the little grey box the green and brown wires are going to from the R/R is?
That's the alternator field coil.

Did the unit you ordered come with wiring instructions?

It doesn't appear to list your bike as compatible. Any time parts are listed for 82+ it usually means it's for the DOHC bike. The 80-82 SOHC electricals are 99% identical so if it were compatible with the 82 it'd be compatible with 80-81 as well.
That being said, the Seca and the 80-82 Specials regulate the field coil in the same way, switching the field coil's ground, so theoretically it should work.
 
Hey BBS360,

Thanks, the unit has not arrived yet, but will update when it's here.

Ok so it's here, sans instructions of course.

So if the field coil is what's illustrated (but not labeled in this wiring diagram), then the green and brown come out of it on my stock '82 xs400. It should just plug in, since nothing else about the harness has changed. What's weird is that the brown wires, when connected, blow the 20 amp main fuse, not the 10 amp signal fuse that the brown wires run through. I have a brand new oem main switch so I doubt that's gonna have issues with it, but that's the only place I can see the brown and red wires having any potential relation.
 

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Any luck figuring it out? Planning to rewire my bike and replace the reg/rec as part of the process
 
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