Ok. I'm a sick person. Some may know I'm going to school for radiography - xray. One of my classes is a physics class tailored around radiography specifically. We just covered generators and rotors and the whole class period had me thinking about all the hell I went through carefully examining my bike's electrics, tearing open and cleaning the starter motor, disassembling and reassembling the alternator, etc etc. I thought "Dang. That all would have been SO much easier if I had understood electronics half as well as I do now!(which still isn't that much)"
Well.
We have to write a paper for class, and I've chosen the topic "How motorcycle alternators and starter motors relate to xray equipment components in function and design"
My problem, and why I'm posting here- while I have a very elementary (textbook) knowledge of electromagnetics, electrostatics and motors/generators right now, I'm wondering if someone else can maybe help me put it all together in a layman's terms sort of way.
I know my 650's alternator is one of the earlier electromagnetic alternators, which differs from the other Fours, but is the same as the cbx, cb900, and gl1100. The wiring harness going to the whole assembly is comprised of a black/white (I'm assuming positive and negative) that go to the alternator brushes, which contact the rotor directly @ the sliprings. The stator's 'side' of the harness is a red and a green(hot and ground), then three yellow AC output wires that go directly to the R/R to be converted to DC (is that right?)
Here's where I'm fuzzy- how does the honda charging system functionally take the DC input to rotor and stator and generate AC output?
Is it that the sliprings' graphite brushes provide the positive and negative needed to give the electromagnetic rotor its ...er... electromagnetism, and it naturally spins being connected to the crankshaft... The spinning rotor goes past the many, many windings of the stator (one set of windings for each of the AC wires, which is why they should have a set amt of resistance between them?) which produces electricity according to Farraday's law (or is it Lenz?) How exactly is that AC and not DC? Does that come with the rapidity of the rotor's spinning past the coils? ...and then it's the diodes in the R/R that rectify the AC into DC...
Thanks in advance for whatever help you can offer. If people want, I'll post the resulting rough draft for y'all to laugh at.