damaged rectifier

[Dennischaves]

I was rinsing my motor today on muffs after a day in salt water
when it was running some how my negative wire broke at the terminal on the battery
did I destroy my rectifier? by running a few seconds with no battery connected

 

[Vic.S]

It probably depends on the magnitude of the current it was supplying when the connection broke.

What causes the damage is the voltage surge that occurs when the circuit is broken. If the engine was running at low speed or the battery was fully charged the current would have been quite small and probably no damage will have been caused.

If you had the engine running at a highish speed and charging at a significant number of amps you may have damaged the rectifier. Hopefully on muffs you were only running at idle rpm.

You can but see if the engine still charges the battery properly .... check the charging current if you can, at least measure the volts ..... or you could go to the extent of removing the rectifier and testing it

 

[Crosbyman]

going OPEN on the grd wire dropped the current draw to 0 amps....

probaly not to damaging compared to a reversed polarity jolt or a shorted +12 distribution


just clear the bad grd connection and try it out


simple 4 diode full wave rectifiers are dirt cheap on Amazon...... that is if you are using a simple rectifier vs a regulator .

not engine make was indicated in your topic

https://www.ebay.com/itm/80-amp-Ful...579822?hash=item41bb429f6e:g:sLsAAOxygPtS5SCN


3 phase rectifiers cheap to ...

https://www.ebay.com/itm/MDS-100A-1...649529?hash=item5dac3d2f79:g:3QwAAOSwfsNfCJ6c