Wheres The Power Going To Now????

Any surplus volts amps will bled off by rectifier/regulator so no problems and a well charged battery.

 

hadn't you noticed your hair standing on end when you took your helmet off

 

How many coats you got Wayne?

 

Analogy Time.

Think of your battery as a barrel of water. Every bulb is a hole in that barrel that lets water out. If you only had a barrel, the barrel would soon be empty. (Flat Battery)

Think of the stator as a pump, it pumps water into the barrel, once the barrel is full it just keeps pumping the same water around in a circle. Imagine the overflow of the barrel just going back into the pump. The reg/rec controls how fast the pump runs so barrel doesn't overfill. (Reg/rec goes down - fried battery) The excess filling capacity is just used to pump the water around.

If you put too many holes in the barrel (heated grips, heated seat, spotlights, etc) then the pump cannot run fast enough to keep up and the barrel will empty (flat battery), therefore you need a bigger pump (on explorers, etc for all the toys)

Hope this explains it. And in no way is meant to be patronising. This is just a simple analogy I would use to teach kids in my school. I am a secondary school teacher of technology (Woodwork, Engineering and Automotive Skills), so like to think I can simplify things to make it easy to understand.

And no, you don't need to add anything to use up the excess power the stator is producing. Think about your bike sat at tickover on your drive with all lights off, will run perfectly fine until it runs out of fuel.