adding lights ???

[Sam.s.94]

hi, i have a go kart witha genuine honda gx200 engine, pretty standard kart, would it be possible for me to get some form of electricity from the engine to run some lights ?

 

[BradenM]

You could run a jackshaft with a belt-drive for a car alternator connected to a small battery. If you were skipping the battery part, then I would advise you have 2 sets of resistors, the first being a primary resistor, keeping the power output to a maximum of 12v, then a second variable resistor so you can control the brightness of the lights. I would recommend use of the LED down lights.

 

[motor_head]

use a battery the alternator stator needs power to excite(sp)

 

[mattlepperd]

use a battery the alternator stator needs power to excite(sp)

One wire alternators are common and self exciting.I have used them for years on my race cars..the trouble is that an alternator will eat up most of his 5 horsepower.they used to make a small generator for bicycles that rubbed on the tire and had a headlamp and taillamp.something like that would be more practical...Even just a small battery would power lights for well over an hour which is longer than most people would ride a go cart at night anyway..he could then just charge it up.
Another idea is LED shop worklights. three hours of BRIGHT light fort 20.00..they are rechargable and would be easy to make a braket for on the front of a cart.

 

[EagleTalons]

I thought honda made some sort of add on stator for their engines...

 

[Kaptain Krunch]

You could make your own custom one out of an old stator from a lawnmower engine. Or you could just have a good deep cycle 12v battery without a charging system and charge it up when your not riding it.

 

[EagleTalons]

The battery idea would be pretty good, as LED's would last forever on that.

This is also a cool idea for lights.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmmjSeOoLZ0&feature=related

 

[zero1dhd]

hi, i have a go kart witha genuine honda gx200 engine, pretty standard kart, would it be possible for me to get some form of electricity from the engine to run some lights ?

If the motor has a stator (you can tell for sure if it has an external coil for the engine spark), look at the wires coming off it. If there is a white and a yellow, you can derive power from those. I'm going off memory here but you can look it up for sure. White would be a 12v power source for only when the motor is running, and the yellow would be a battery charging source, but you need to get a rectifier, because its a 12vAC source and the rectifier would switch it to DC to charge a battery. You might need a rectifier for the white wire source as well, again, going off memory here

If the motor doesn't have a stator, you can always just put in a battery and charge it nightly or whatever. A single light wouldn't draw very much power at all, especially if you run a LED light. Get a sealed gel-cell battery with a depth charger, and you may not even need to charge it very often at all.