Craziest system on stock ALT!!

[Ed Lester 10+ year member]

So the alternator allows system voltage to drop to that of battery voltage, even when it has more output potential to give? //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/wink.gif.608e3ea05f1a9f98611af0861652f8fb.gif
Now you are suggesting your batts only require 30 amps to maintain a full charge even when your stereo is drawing (presumably) alot more current than that. Again you seem to think you can get something for nothing. All electrical power from your charging system came initially from the alternator. No where else, just the alt.

Your theory is incorrect. Sorry man.

Your missing my point.

The alternator does have more potential but does not need it unless the batteries drop too much. The batteries never drop below 12v, so the alternator does not have to work to full potential to charge them back to full.

(actually, I think you proved my point)

 

[Lakota 5,000+ posts]

Diminishing Return applies a lot, I think you are overlooking. The more batteries you have the more load your alty will see. It can put a strain on it when you are banging at 11kwatts. Let me ask you this. With the car off and just running on batteries how long does your stereo last for without giving up? Now with the car on sure the alty is still on, but with a low output alty youll gain some time playing longer but in the end youll be dipping into the battery more than the alty can keep with.
I dont see why you would spend a few hundred dollars on a battery(multip few hundreds if you buy more batteries) when you can just as easy spend that money towards an alty.

Right now I am using an a cheap interstate battery I got from Sears. I have a 200a alty. I have seen no issues on my car. I am running a NINe.5 which is a bit of a current hog. I see no dimming whatsever or any signs of struggles

for a world finalist i don't see how you haven't taken Basic Physics 101

I don't know about most of you guys, but none of my physics classes have ever went into much depth about alternators

 

[GohillaAudio]

just was wondering what is the most RMS wattage someone has had or knows of someone that had on a stock alternator??? If they had 1 or 2 upgraded batteries or wiring thats fine, but just a stock alt.... The most I have seen is 3000 watts. It was two rockford 1000bd's and 1 rockford 400.4 and 1 600.4. It was in a Hyundai Tiburon with some upgraded wiring and 1 Kinetik battery. He said he had no electrical issues. It slammed!! what else..............

thats crazy, i have read a couple different places that th t10001bd's are a little current hungry....i guess i'll find out, i have 2 on the way

i should be alright though, i have a 200amp alt, big3, 4 batterys, and sone 0/1 i still need to install

 

[audiolife 5,000+ posts]

is a bigger alt better? yup it is but at the same time i also have and know guys who have ran more amp power than their alt could support by itself. i ran 2700+ watts all class AB on old PPI PM amplifiers on a 80 amp alt and i also know a guy that went 3 years driving around with 8 batteries in his van powering systems from 8kw to 16kw from a stock dodge caravan alt. wasnt his "normal car" to drive around but it seen the road a few times a week LOL. all deppends how dead you let your batteries get...

 

[Beerdrnkr 5,000+ posts]

I pretty much just go off of what I personally have done and seen and it's worked fine in daily vehicles, however we obviously don't listen past about 142dbs on a daily basis.

 

[audioholic 5,000+ posts]

Your missing my point.The alternator does have more potential but does not need it unless the batteries drop too much. The batteries never drop below 12v, so the alternator does not have to work to full potential to charge them back to full.

(actually, I think you proved my point)

Once system voltage drops to the resting voltage of the batts, the alt is already outputting its full potential. I dont know a more basic way to put that. This is the fundamental flaw in your theory.
Past that point, the batts start losing their stored energy, which the alt will have to replace when demand decreases to below the potential output of the alt.

 

[audioholic 5,000+ posts]

is a bigger alt better? yup it is but at the same time i also have and know guys who have ran more amp power than their alt could support by itself. i ran 2700+ watts all class AB on old PPI PM amplifiers on a 80 amp alt and i also know a guy that went 3 years driving around with 8 batteries in his van powering systems from 8kw to 16kw from a stock dodge caravan alt. wasnt his "normal car" to drive around but it seen the road a few times a week LOL. all deppends how dead you let your batteries get...

80 amps @ 14.4 volts works out to less than 1200 watts. That's assuming 100% efficiency AND the car using zero draw from the alt. So obviously that person was relying on stored energy in his battery bank to fulfill the system's total demand, a supply which is most definitely finite. Your example is easily explainable as a situation where the person obviously didnt listen to his system at full potential often, or relied on an external charging source during off-hours. Anything else will result in dead batts eventually. Not a good recipe for most daily drivers.

 

[Ed Lester 10+ year member]

Once system voltage drops to the resting voltage of the batts, the alt is already outputting its full potential. I dont know a more basic way to put that. This is the fundamental flaw in your theory.
Past that point, the batts start losing their stored energy, which the alt will have to replace when demand decreases to below the potential output of the alt.

The alternator replaces that stored energy very rapidly (under 1 second in my case) this is faster than I can draw to drop voltage to under 12v.

When playing music my voltage does not stay at 12v, it drops to a low point of 12v and rises back to 14.5v in between and beat break that is 1 second or longer. making this setup just fine for my listening habits.

 

[Ed Lester 10+ year member]

Also, my alty is 120A (not sure what RPM). So my concern is that my alty can charge my batts, which it can do very well.

 

[RAM_Designs 5,000+ posts]

This is hilarious...alts not working until voltage drops to 13V, even though alt normally charges at 14.5V //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/laugh.gif.48439b2acf2cfca21620f01e7f77d1e4.gif:laugh://content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/laugh.gif.48439b2acf2cfca21620f01e7f77d1e4.gif

Listen to audioholic, what he's saying is scientific fact/common sense.

 

[audioholic 5,000+ posts]

The alternator replaces that stored energy very rapidly (under 1 second in my case) this is faster than I can draw to drop voltage to under 12v.

How did you conclude all this? Under what circumstances can you recoup the energy loss in less than 1 second? You dont even say how much energy you mean, the duration of the depletion, how you tested... anything. You just toss out these numbers. Sorry, I need more than that.
If the stereo has a potential to draw over double the output of the alternator, as many of the examples in this thread suggest, and the peak current demand lasts longer than one second, how do you figure the alt can recharge this loss in less than one second?

When playing music my voltage does not stay at 12v, it drops to a low point of 12v and rises back to 14.5v in between and beat break that is 1 second or longer. making this setup just fine for my listening habits.

Then the transient nature of the music you listen to, paired with your volume settings, allows your system to maintain charge averaged over time. This is not the same thing as you are suggesting to us here, which is that your batts never drop below their maximum charge rate (or never for more than one second) even given a load more than double your alt's potential output. Again unless your batts can make energy from nothing, it all comes from the alt, and if your drain over time (averaged) is greater than your alt's potential to put back into the charging system, you WILL end up with dead batteries eventually.

 

[pr-festiva 10+ year member]

I was running 3 st1000d's off of a stock 50 amp in my festiva.put in a 168 amp ohio gen. and only gained .2? lol

 

[AudioAnonymous 10+ year member]

To be a World Finalist at db drag you don't have to know squat about alternators. Even to win your class you still don;t need to know anything. :lol:

 

[x2o 10+ year member]

Hm, I didn't expect this thread to blow up with such good info. That's why I love CA.Com, all these people argue, and I learn things! Yay!

 

[Lakota 5,000+ posts]

To be a World Finalist at db drag you don't have to know squat about alternators. Even to win your class you still don;t need to know anything. :lol:

You don't have to know too much about physics to get loud All you need to know is how to work on things and how to test.