car and motocycle use what type of current? Dc or Ac?

 

All batteries are DC.

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All autos and motorcycles use DC systems.

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That's not 100% true, some use AC or even both.

My old 125 used AC to power the headlight and DC to charge the battery.

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well all the cars and motorcycles that i know of have a dc battery. but the car alternator produces ac rite?

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I think they went to batteries as soon as people wanted starter motors. When hand-crank car engines backfire they break the radius or the ulna or both. If I were there, I'm sure I would have disliked this.

Speaking of AC, I think LED taillights use/will be using a DC-DC convertor.

 

True, but the AC in modern car alternators are immediately rectified. The alternator then ends up charging the battery using DC, surprise surprise.
The battery and alternator thus supplies all electrical components of the car with DC.

 

Not entirely true - the alternator produces AC inside, but most car alternators have an internal rectifier and provide a DC output.

Motorcycles normally have a rectifier mounted external to the alternator. which again converts it to DC.

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I think most motorcycles makes use of a magneto, rather than an alternator.
Not sure what the tech behind the magneto is though.

 

Inductive components, such as some ABS sensors & Crank/Camshaft speed sensors produce AC...

 

No, magneto's were use LONGGGGG! ago for the ignition, on all engines, before coil ignition was used - nothing to do with the electrical system. My 1954 Velocette 350cc used a Magento and a dynamo.

Motorcycles used alternators long before cars ever did though, which still used dynamos (which output DC) for many years.

The reason was simple, cars needed much higher powers - motorbikes needed very little, and a crude alternator is very simple and cheap (fixed coil, spinning permanent magnet).

My Velocette looked something like this:

http://www.vintagebike.co.uk/Bike%20...MAC-350-52.htm

The magneto is the gray circle at the front of the engine, if I remember correctly the points were under there?.

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A little before my time there Nigel, but I had a couple of field bikes that had magnetos. The magneto was driven from the flywheel, attached directly to the crankshaft. The point set was operated from a cam on the inside of the flywheel and thus, was a bit of a bugger to set the gap through the flywheel window.

Ahhh... happy days.

 

The alternator coils are under the flywheel as well, usually two, one for charging the battery, and the other for directly feeding the headlights.

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In that case the headlight circuit is also AC

The same happens (or used to happen some 40 years ago) in some bicycles: the generator had a rotating permanent magnet and a fixed coil. It fed the headlight and a small taillight.

It was known as the bicycle "dinamo", but in fact it was an alternator and not a dinamo as dinamo means DC generator.

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Yes, that's why I said 'directly feeding the headlight'.

Yes, they were generally alternators, and I beleive often still are?.

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