The worst aspect is the location of the diode board, inside the engine casing. Not only is there relatively little airflow, but the case gets more than a little warm when the engine is running. Semiconductor failure rates are exponential with temperature, and diode junctions are 100x as likely to fail at 100°C as they are at 40°C. And the diode board has 11 of these, baking away! Plus there's brushes to wear out, a field coil which doesn't operate if its warning lamp burns out, etc, etc.
The EnDuraLast system replaces all of these parts ... and all of its semiconductors are outside the engine cases!
This document outlines the operation of the regulator:
Regulator Info .PDF.
I hope to take some measurements of my own and provide a little more
information soon. In summary, though, this is a switch-mode
regulator, and so "excess energy" is not "wasted" any more
than a light bulb wastes energy while it is switched off.
The "450W" bit is a bit misleading, and misses the point anyway. Sure, it can supply 32A at ~8000rpm, but when is an airhead ever revving that high for long? The important point is that it can generate a lot of current even at low RPM ... it really should be called the "20A at ~2000rpm" generator, but I guess most people would miss the point!
There's suddenly a huge amount of space under that front cover!
(The bracket which the rec/reg is attached to was already broken. You can't see it, but there's an extra ground wire running forward to the bolts which attach the ignition controller, just to be sure to be sure. I tapped the power line into one of the blue/green wires in the loom. Yes, this bike really could do with a wash. No, the frame spine isn't bent, it's just the lens.)
I strongly recommed crimping and soldering and heat-shrinking all the connections. The crimp provides physical strength, the solder electrical conductivity, the heatshrink electrical (and moisture) insulation. For example, for the connection between the two red battery wires from the regulator and the fuse holder, I removed the supplied crimp barrel from its yellow insulating sleeve, cut bits of heatshrink to sit over the wires, crimped the wires into the barrel, flooded the barrel with solder (the solder gets drawn into the wires by capilliary action, magic) then shrunk the bits of heatshrink around the joint to provide a double layer of insulation. I'll try to remember to take some photos next time.
Of particular note is this comment from Kevin Beretta, who's on his way 'round the world:
15,000 miles of abuse so far (www.nohorizons.net). Still charging as if new. The battery is getting abused (overnight charging of computer etc.) but seems to be holding up. Glad I got this setup, as the other day it took 2 days to cover 40 miles over a pass, at walking pace. Strange to not get out of first gear for 2 days ... The RPM's were low, thankfully there was cool air to cool the bike. Not sure how you would do it with a stock setup ... I don't think I got over 3k rpm...