This thread assumes you have checked your battery and have put a volt-meter to the battery while hooked up with engine running and discovered that you have no measurable output from your rectifier/regulator box. You should resistance check the stator as per your Hayes or Clymer manual, but stators very rarely ever go bad. Can't say that about rectifers -- they are a different story.
Them rectifier/regulators do indeed go bad occasionally. Considering that they work by taking the maximum output current from your stator and literally "frittering away" all the excess current & voltage beyond what your battery needs at the moment by turning it all into heat, the fact they get tired and die isn't really surprising.
New rectifiers from stealerships are quite costly. Used Savage rectifiers aren't always available, as ours are considered drop in replacements for every 5 wire rectifier bike out there in bikeland. Lots of folks will pick up on a Savage 5 wire rectifier -- you are bidding sometimes against the whole world when one shows up. And these are older style rectifiers (and sometimes actually old time-wise as well).
A more modern solution exists. There are many much newer GSXR 1000, 750 and 600 cc bikes being parted out all the time on Ebay and there are dozens of rectifiers from these bikes on Ebay as we speak.
These rectifiers range from $19.99 to $125 for the same class of late year model GSXR rectifier. The most modern ones are all the seven wire type, so let's just talk about those. (you can figure out the 5 wire examples without any help, right?)
Step one is to LOOK AT THE ENLARGED PICTURE OF WHAT IS FOR SALE. You can sometimes spot a drop in replacement as the connectors for the 5 wire versions can be identical to ours.
Note: even if you have to buy a 7 wire rectifier you may be able to use the 3 wire connector (black leads coming from the stator) part of the rectifier "as is" since it is a standard Suzuki connector.
Next, you have 2 red striped (positive) wires that are same-same and can be soldered together to your cut-off existing connector's red lead. Ditto for the 2 white striped (negative) wires going to the black lead. So you do a little soldering and heat shrink tubing trick to put the old connector on to the new R/R box.
http://forum.svrider.com/showthread.php?t=66513&highlight=gsxrNow you have a state of the art modern rectifier regulator assembly that will handle your piddly stator output without being stressed at all, ever. Although the new box is bigger, the bolt pattern will fit your fender (it is a Suzuki standard bolt pattern).
http://forum.svrider.com/showthread.php?t=82244&highlight=GSXR+RectifierCredit for this idea belongs to the squid boys, so here is a source link to tell you how to do this trick in some detail. Be sure to follow the various links mentioned in the flow of the thread, they lead to pictures you may want to look at.
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Kudos to them squid boys !! Good trick -- save you some big bucks and get you a modern bullet-proof regulator/rectifier.
Oldfeller