Alternator help

[basketball346 10+ year member]

Ok i just bought a PG tantrum 1200.1 that is rated (according to birthsheet) at 1449.9wrms. Now i have a 1994 ford explorer with power locks and windows, and all that stuff. It has a 95amp alternator and i had dimming with 600 watts on my last system. Does ne one know what size alternator i should get or if mine will be sufficient? also what size wiring should i buy for this amp? thanx alot guys

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[Mind_nl 10+ year member]

You should put in some capacitors. I would get 3 x 0.5 Farad caps. That should fix your dimming.

 

[pavengmike6 10+ year member]

CAPS are only a band-aid for a bigger problem It may work, but you will still be putting a big workload on your ALT. You should not have got any headlight dimming with the 600 watt amp. The best thing for you to do is this. Take your truck down to an ALT shop that can test the draw on your ELEC system with everything on. (A/C, lights,) and anything else you can think of. That will give you a base line of how many extra amps you will have to play with. We will take a number (say 85). We will say that is your amp draw with all your lights and A/C, on. You have a 95 amps ALT so you have 10 amps to play with. If your amp has a max draw of 75 amps (i do not know the right number, it should be in the owners book), you will need to increase your ALT to at least to a 150 amp ALT. Granted the number they give you for the amp draw is supposed to be the max, so with these numbers it will work, but it may not give you any extra amps. I would go with either a 150 or 200 amp ALT. And also get a yellow top battery. This will help. I know it will cost some money, but the CAPS are not the best answer.

Next insure you have the proper wire size. I would use a 4 ga minimum. I would also use a 4 ga ground too.