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THANKS FOR ALL THE REPLIES. I’M INTRIGUED BY THE BRIGGS AND STRATTON REGULATOR, BUT FROM IT’S PHYSICAL APPEARANCE, IT APPEARS TO BE NOTHING MORE THAT A BRIDGE RECTIFIER EVEN THOUGH IT IS CALLED A REGULATOR. DOES ANYONE KNOW FOR SURE WHETHER OR NOT IT IS AN ACTUAL REGULATOR OR SIMPLY A RECTIFIER?
AS FAR AS THE RECTIFIER GOES, WHAT I AM REALLY WONDERING IS WHETHER I CAN USE SAY A 35 OR 50 AMP RECTIFIER WITH VOLTAGE RATINGS OF 400,600 OR EVEN 1000 VOLTS. FOR INSTANCE, I CAN GET A 50 AMP 1000 VOLT RECTIFIER OUT OF CHINA FOR LESS THAN A DOLLAR. IF THAT WILL WORK, AND I THINK IT WILL, I’M ALL IN AND I’LL BUY A DOZEN OF THEM.
BACK TO THE B&S, IF IT IS TRUELY A REGULATOR, I WOULD GO THAT ROUTE. THERE IS CERTAINLY AN ADVANTAGE TO REGULATING THE VOLTAGE EVEN THOUGH IT IS NOT ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY IN MY APPLICATION (MARK 55). I’M GOING TO LOOK INTO THAT FURTHER, BUT IN THE MEANTIME, IF ANYONE KNOWS FOR SURE THAT IT REGULATES AS WELL AS RECTIFIES, THAT WOULD BE VERY HELPFUL.
See my answer above. A 50 Amp 1000 Volt will be fine. I suggested 4x the normal voltage. These unregulated motors can go up around 16V, so 4x 16=64V. Not quite 4 times 12 (48) but good enough if cooled enough.
Furthermore 1000 Volt is overkill but fine. In fact, it will provide better protection against overvoltages which occur during loose connections, etc, which are the prime killers of outboard rectifiers.
Now for the rest of the story. Didn’t your Merc originally come with a selenium rectifier and positive ground? Have you converted it to negative ground? The bridge rectifier you are looking at will work nicely if negative ground. In fact it probably will actually give higher output voltage than the old selenium rectifier You might want to monitor the voltage awhile to see how it’s doing.
Do you even know what a “bridge rectifier” is? A bridge rectifier will have 4 diodes inside, and two wires coming from the alternator, one wire going to the battery, and one wire going to ground.. Very often the ground “wire” is not an actual wire, but the case serves as a ground connection.
A bridge rectifier circuit. “Yellow” pertains to OMC motors. I don’t know what color Merc used. Doesn’t matter anyway, it just an ID reference.
I highly doubt that the B&S is voltage regulated. Most likely a bridge rectifier also called a full wave rectifier.
The battery acts as the voltage regulator.
If the system is constantly over charging the battery, boiling it’s water away, you can disconnect a charging lead from the stator to the rectifier turning it into a half wave rectifier. . This will reduce its current output. Also a switch could be put into a lead. High voltage isn’t usually much of a problem unless you are powering fancy electronic devices like a chart plotter, etc.
Usually in a power supply capacitors are used to smooth or average the waveform. The low cost marine rectifiers that do not regulate voltage use the boat battery to smooth the waveform.
You may also want to look into a rectifier/voltage regulator like used on the OMC motors in the 1990’s. They are going to run you $100 or more unless you can find a used working one.
CDI electronics sells such regulators.
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