Ralph, this sounds like a real break through for those of us still running the 28A. However, I'm not quite grasping what you've done. Have you replaced the the "black wire to the VRR" with a direct wire from the battery switched with a relay? TIA
NO, I did not replace the black wire. I used a 30 amp relay wired directly to the battery with a 5 amp fuse and 18awg wire. The relay trigger wire comes from a wire that is connected to the back of the fuse block. There is a 5amp ignition controlled connection, you have to pull the fuse block out. The connection is on the back. If you will look at the black 2 wire plug Black/white wire plug that is right in front of the red 3 wire alt plug, I skint the insulation on the black wire and soldered in the battery power wire. You could also splice in at the VRR connection. Makes a parallel connection. I opted to not cut the wire, but I believe one could cut the black wire at the VRR, since the power comes from the fuse box. Should my relay fail, I still have a working system, the voltage on the volt meter will read higher like before the bypass. There has to be power to the alternator via the black and white wire to complete the electromagnet circuit. The wire to the VRR has to be switched. I ran a direct jumper to test and turned the key off and the bike kept running. Probably feed back power through the fuse block kept the coils powered.
My theory of the Tic,Tic, Tock.
Common theory on the 28 amp alt WILL fail because of heat generated through bad/dirty connections is sound IMO, but we hear of others failing with clean or soldered connections so???????? Got to be something else.
Unlike many moto charging systems the VRR doesn't shunt excess power to ground, but rather cuts the field coil circuit (VRR white wire). The black wire sends power to the magnets and also tells the VRR the system voltage. I have ridden my bike 40K miles (90K on the clock) with running voltage of 15.5-16v. Others have these voltages also as reported on this forum, this thread. I figured this might be normal, even though I have wondered why voltage stayed high on a fully charged battery. Well due to the line loss voltage due to maybe corrosion and running small wires through the ignition key before the fuse block the voltage on my black wire was almost 2 volts lower than battery voltage. This low voltage condition is tricking the VRR into thing the battery is low and it supplies more voltage to the battery (15+v) on the red/white wire. The alt never has the chance to rest and the higher voltage of the VRR causes heat and higher resistance.
The newer air cooled alt is a single piece unit with the VRR built in. The alt connects directly to the battery so there is very little or no voltage drop for the internal VRR to read. Both alternators cut the field coil to regulate voltage.
I don't run running lights, heated grips so I don't need the extra power the 40 amp makes (would be nice, I guess). Read of 187K miles on a 28 amp alt and still going.
Maybe the reason for failure is the low voltage is simply causing the alt to work harder than it needs to????
Didn't give such a thought. OTOH, why are ya letting yur oil get that low? 
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