The source of energy for the electrical system is the motor, the rotor and stator captures this energy. The rotor is connected to the engine and spins inside the stator. It has magnets around it that induce an alternating current in the coils on the stator.
We did not do too much for this system. But the stator was not fitting in the engine case as the case was made for an older stator. So we ground down one of the pegs you can see in the picture above to fit the stator.
The rotor stator system outputs alternating current, but to be compatible with the rest of the system it has to be in direct current, so the rectifier converts it to direct current using 4 diodes.
The spark plug, ignition coil system works to light the spark to ignite the fuel. The coil has two sets of coiled wires, one with more coils, one with less around an iron core. The ratio of coils steps up the voltage by that ratio bringing it to a voltage high enough to create a voltage differential great enough to spark across the two metal plates in the spark plug.
The distributor works to time the spark to the right time, at the top of the pistons compression stroke. As the motor spins the cam spins and moves the cam lobe which opens the contact points. There is also a capacitor connected in parallel to this system thats just there to capture excess charge to make sure that a spark doesn’t form across the points.
We took apart the distributor testing if the springs worked and if the capacitor worked on an oscilloscope and they did.
The headlamp and horn are more peripheral in the electric system. We searched Ebay for an original Lucas headlamp and the horn came on the motorcycle to start. We just took them apart and cleaned them.
The switch is the central hub of the electrical system, directing the wires to different places according to the motorcycle setting. Ours just had on and off.
The switch was tedious to take apart, it originally was not turning so we took it apart and cleaned it soaking it in acetone. We make the mistake of not taking good pictures of the wiring so we struggled for a long time to put the wires back. In the end the real issue wasn’t gunk inside the switch but and external bent metal plate. We unbent it and it worked.
The wiring harness connected all the components and did so neatly on the motorcycle. We were given a harness made for and ET system and converted it to be used for our battery based motorcycle.
Despite being the electrical team, we still got to dip our feet a bit onto hardware and machine shop tools. We got to use the lathe one lesson to make spacers to attach the battery case to the bike.
