Yeah, understanding circuit's operation will help with troubleshooting when something does go wrong.
Some common weak-points in '80s Hondas are stator-to-RR and starter-solenoid connectors.
These have to pass 100% output from stator fulltime due to shunt-circuit RR.
Contrary to some old-wives tales, regulator stage of RR is linear-regulator completely after rectifier and only manages
DC output by using voltage-divider to split off 14.5-14.9 volts (5) for charging battery and running bike-electronics.
Then rest of power above that from 15.0-60vdc is shunted/dumped to ground (4).
You can see that at higher-RPMs, RR is only 25% efficient with 75% of stator's power dumped as heat.
These connectors can get corroded over time due to Honda using unsealed bare-brass connectors.
This corrosion then increases resistance on surface of terminals, which increases heat at junction.
Heat then increases corrosion which causes more resistance and there's downward avalanche...
Note that burning doesn't actually start at terminal-to-terminal contact.
But at the terminal-to-wire crimp due to insufficient contact surface area.
Circle-to-circle (wire-strands) contact or circle-to-terminal touches only at tangent of circle with minimal surface area, less than 10%.
Remaining surface-area around wire strand is just air, which doesn't conduct electricity very well.
One way to verify this is to measure VDC output right at RR. Then measure again at battery terminals.
Should be exactly same. Otherwise, those corroded/burnt connectors are causing power-drop in between.
Recent case of this:
My ultimate solution is upgrade to modern series-circuit RR which drives stator only just enough to meet bike's power-needs and no more.
RR remain cool to touch (98% efficient) during entire ride and connectors & wiring never gets hot.
Did write-up with references and actual current & temp measurements here:
