Any Damage?

[marcthelegend]

Was out 4x4ing recently at night time with a mate.. i had my roof lights on and the front spotties (all up 8 100watters and the 120 watts from regular highbeams) so all up i was running 920 watts or 77 amps.. anyways it was mostly rocky stuff and bumpy gravel at a slow speed, so paj was at most 1000 - 2000 rpm after about 1 hour of this.. everything looked a little dim but didnt think much of it.. then all of a sudden my radar warner goes off .. i knew damn well there wouldnt be a cop or radar out there lol and realised it said low battery (it says that at 9 volts) quickly turned off all driving lights and let it charge for a while and turned on only 4 spotties.. now my question is.

Im sure its bad for the alternator, but how mmuch damage could actually be done??

next day i bought a new battery and now whenever i turn on my lights, eveything dims slightly .. thats not with any spotties ..have i totally F****D the alternator??

Regards

Marc

[pagerow]

Hi Marc
Gee I doubt if you have cooked the alternator!!! Are you able to measure what it is putting out? My knowledge of electrics is not great but I thought that alternators just generated electricity? Maybe if there is a fault (and the dimming of lights could well be an indicator) it might lie elsewhere. Why not check the output of the alternator? That's a baffler.

[marcthelegend]

tried it and its 14.38 to 14.40 .. but the dimming thing is a little bit of a concern, might have something to do with the new battery .. will check the battery clamps .. the previous batter wasnt a 4x4 one so it leaked everywhere everytime lol, if that doesnt fix it, not too sure what the problem could be.

Marc

[JoshF]

I hadn't thought about this in a long time...In days gone past when I had spotties on my Escort I needed to ensure the altenator could produce enough output to run the electrics of the car plus recharge the battery. With 4 spotties and other electrical items on the car we upgraded it to a larger capacity, It may be worth looking at what you need (inputs of the lights etc) and check with an auto electrician as to what you may need to do.

[marcthelegend]

might get one of those clamp meter thingos to test the current draw of just basic things (stereo etc.) and see how much current i have left to work with, on highway driving, its never flattened the battery so i imagine it happened because i never really got past 2000 rpms, anyone know the amp output of a NP pajero alternator?? (3.8l v6) and how much it would cost to get a more powerful alternator???

Regards

Marc

[Rocketsurgery]

Was out 4x4ing recently at night time with a mate.. i had my roof lights on and the front spotties (all up 8 100watters and the 120 watts from regular highbeams) so all up i was running 920 watts or 77 amps.. anyways it was mostly rocky stuff and bumpy gravel at a slow speed, so paj was at most 1000 - 2000 rpm after about 1 hour of this.. everything looked a little dim but didnt think much of it.. then all of a sudden my radar warner goes off .. i knew damn well there wouldnt be a cop or radar out there lol and realised it said low battery (it says that at 9 volts) quickly turned off all driving lights and let it charge for a while and turned on only 4 spotties.. now my question is.

Im sure its bad for the alternator, but how mmuch damage could actually be done??

next day i bought a new battery and now whenever i turn on my lights, eveything dims slightly .. thats not with any spotties ..have i totally F****D the alternator??

Regards

Marc

Why replace the battery? All it probably needed was a damned good charge. Question - if most of your driving was at extremely low speed did you really need nearly a kilowatt of of lighting? If you intend doing a lot of this type of slow speed stuff you could look at fitting a few rock lights underneath your fourby or aimed close to the front - they would give your spotter much more info than a kilowatt light out the front. Sure if you wish to have this amount of light you could fit a heavier alternator (don't diesels have a 100Amp unit?) but is this a necessary expense?

[swordfishBob]

Why replace the battery? All it probably needed was a damned good charge. Question - if most of your driving was at extremely low speed did you really need nearly a kilowatt of of lighting? .... Sure if you wish to have this amount of light you could fit a heavier alternator (don't diesels have a 100Amp unit?) but is this a necessary expense?

* If it's a 100 Amp alternator, I wouldn't expect a lot more, but would expect less when you're not in the alternator's ideal range

* There must be -slight- dimming when you apply a big load, otherwise the alternator / charging circuit wouldn't provide any more power than under lower load. The effect should be very small in normal operation, but you're talking about a very substantial load

If you seriously want that much light, I'd suggest a second battery, with a high-current isolator and a voltmeter, to run most of the "extra" lights.

[marcthelegend]

old battery was well and truly near dead .. previous owner put in a very small car battery instead of the larger 4x4 battery, there was a fair bit of rock and gravel work involved, couldnt really drive so fast, i just like to be able to see whats well ahead of me when 4x4ing, so i have time to think about whether to continue of not.. i have since taken the roof rack mounted lights off and put them on the front of the paj now i can see further but not too much around the paj, thinking i will leave it like this from now on instead of spending money on a bigger alternator etc.

Marc