Everything fell into place today. It was in the low 70s, my back brace arrived in the mail, and my replacement rectifier arrived in the mail. Hopped on the Duc and started the season off with a 50 mile ride into rural Kansas to one of the few “driving roads” in the area, a series of 80mph sweepers that are quite lovely to string together on a racious Italian v-twin. Turned around to head back down the road towards home and ended up duking (heh) it out with a middle aged man on a Superduke 1290. He wasn’t trying to outrun me on the straights (which he easily could have done with twice the power) but he sure didn’t seem to be able to lean as much as me in the corners. Judging by the chicken strips on his rear tire I bet this is his first season with that bike.
Of course my experience was marred at around 45 miles when I ran through a swarm of bugs at 60mph... going to need to do some cleaning on my helmet now.
Shut the bike off at home and let it sit for a bit and thumbed the starter and it snapped right back to life. After the OEM rectifier crapped the bed I bought a Yamaha R1 MOSFET-style regulator and some 10 gauge wire, gold plated bullet connectors, and heat shrink butt connectors and completely refurbished the Ducati’s questionably engineered charging system with the new regulator and all new wiring.
Bonus: Here’s a genuine FH012AA regulator next to a knock off. The knockoff was essentially DOA for $20 brand new, but it came with all the connectors necessary to retrofit it onto my bike so I figured for $20 even if it was DOA it was worth it vs scrounging up all the plugs and such separately. The genuine article was $35 shipped from a motorcycle salvage dealer on eBay.