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Old 01-22-2020, 03:46 PM   #4
dsraven
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Join Date: Nov 2010
Location: calgary alberta
Posts: 7,830
Re: Another Alternator Question...

if you want to connect a simple 3 wire alt it is easy to wire up. there is a 10ga battery wire that bolts on to the stud on the back of the alt. there is a wire that can be jumpered over to that battery wire stud for terminal 2, this is the voltage sensing portion. it can also be led away from the alternator and connected downstream further at a wiring junction terminal block for more accurate voltage sensing if you wanted to but not necessary for a low draw unit like yours unless you find the lights etc are not as bright as you think they should be. the other wire goes to a bulb in the dash. the bulb is supplied battery voltage to one side and alternator voltage to the other side. since both of those are positive voltage then the light bulb doesn't light if the alternator is charging. if the alternator is not charging then the light has batt voltage on one side and less than batt voltage on the other side so it begins to flicker or come on steady. if you were to have a situation where your draw is more than the alt output then the same thing would happen. it used to happen on really cold days when you started the car with a half dead battery due to cold, the engine cranked longer with a bigger draw on the battery due to the engine oil being thick so the alternator worked hard to keep up for the first few minutes. couple that with a poorly adjusted choke and the engine idle would be lower than it should have been. presto, alt can't keep up with the draw so the charge light would flicker. it would stop flickering when the engine warmed up, thus warming the battery up under the hood, plus the rpm would come up some so the alt was spinning faster. well, you get the idea.
anyway, if you don't want a charge light there is a resistor that can be placed where the bulb would normally be.
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