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Old 09-17-2010, 01:35 PM
Neil E. Neil E. is offline
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Join Date: Mar 2007
Location: Gormley, Ontario, Canada
Posts: 1,418
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I consider the term "floating the ground", to be a real misnomer. Does the GasGas normally have part of the windings split out to feed a small rectifier? This would create some DC, but I don't know what it would be used for on a bike without a battery.

There are only two functions in an electrical system: ignition and lighting. Ignition is taken care of through a separate winding and the CDI. If the lighting is fully AC, there is only a regulator installed to limit the voltage level. This prevents burning out bulbs at high RPMs.

On many bikes, the lighting coils have a common ground partway through the windings. Above the ground point is AC. Below the ground point is AC too, but gets fed to a rectifier and changed to DC for battery charging. This is typically only a small amount of current and not suitable for any real load like a big headlight.

Floating the ground is a misnomer because the ground is just being moved to the "bottom" of the windings. You take a larger rectifier and change the entire AC output to DC. "Moving the ground" would be the correct term.
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