Will a High Output Alternator Fry my car's Electrical System?

Wanted to touch on a few items here on this old, stickied, necromanced thread:

Amps and other accessories draw current from the charging system, alternator included. The alternator doesn't "push" anything.

The incinerated car is a result of a bad install or a faulty alternator and im inclinded to think that was most likely install related.

Analogies comparing current "flow" with water flow are fundamentally flawed given that electrons don't really flow at all. Vibrate back and fourth, sure, but don't really flow like water.
 
As lithium batteries are becoming more popular, is there anything different needed with an HO than normal alternator as far as regulators,etc?
That entirely boils down to the needs of the lithium bank. Some chemistries have different maximal voltages than others. Also maximal charging rates will vary too.
 
lol same here i guess. My 320 amp sits at 14.7-14.8 constant from the maker. Same with my oem Ford 120 or 130 amp alternator . Some around here have theirs setup to run over 15 and do that on purpose.
 
i think i get what he is saying. the water is running at the same pressure through a fire hose as your kitchen fawcet. it's just that a fire hose has more water not pressure therfore a bigger hose is needed. am i close? //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/titanic.gif.8089b7552c370bcc138aa121756d0c0b.gif
basically except the water in this metaphor would only move through the hose if something was pulling it from the other end and if their is no load on the other end it will just compensate and the pully will have less resistance and generate less power it's not going to just build up extra power and melt if that was the case the factory alternators would do the same thing. In my camaro the 250 amp stock alternator would be generating almost nothing when heated seats, lighting, audio, etc are not being used. Having them restrung for higher output just allows them to generate it when needed it doesn't make them stuck full throttle generating energy and wasting gas for no reason.
 
Bernoulli's Principle

This is an important principle involving the movement of a fluid through a pressure difference. Suppose a fluid is moving in a horizontal direction and encounters a pressure difference. This pressure difference will result in a net force, which by Newton's 2nd law will cause an acceleration of the fluid. The fundamental relation,

Work done = change in kinetic energy

in this situation can be written as

(change in pressure) x area x distance = change in kinetic energy, which furthermore can be expressed as

Change in pressure + change in (kinetic energy / volume) = 0.

In other words, Pressure + (kinetic energy /volume) = constant

which is known as Bernoulli's principle. This is very similar to the statement we encountered before for a freely falling object, where the gravitational potential energy plus the kinetic energy was constant (i. e., was conserved).

Bernoulli's principle thus says that a rise (fall) in pressure in a flowing fluid must always be accompanied by a decrease (increase) in the speed, and conversely, if an increase (decrease) in , the speed of the fluid results in a decrease (increase) in the pressure. This is at the heart of a number of everyday phenomena. As a very trivial example, Bernouilli's principle is responsible for the fact that a shower curtain gets ``****** inwards'' when the water is first turned on. What happens is that the increased water/air velocity inside the curtain (relative to the still air on the other side) causes a pressure drop. The pressure difference between the outside and inside causes a net force on the shower curtain which ***** it inward. A more useful example is provided by the functioning of a perfume bottle: squeezing the bulb over the fluid creates a low pressure area due to the higher speed of the air, which subsequently draws the fluid up.

Bernouilli's principle also tells us why windows tend to explode, rather than implode in hurricanes: the very high speed of the air just outside the window causes the pressure just outside to be much less than the pressure inside, where the air is still. The difference in force pushes the windows outward, and hence explode. If you know that a hurricane is coming it is therefore better to open as many windows as possible, to equalize the pressure inside and out.

Another example of Bernoulli's principle at work is in the lift of aircraft wings and the motion of ``curve balls'' in baseball. In both cases the design is such as to create a speed differential of the flowing air past the object on the top and the bottom - for aircraft wings this comes from the movement of the flaps, and for the baseball it is the presence of ridges. Such a speed differential leads to a pressure difference between the top and bottom of the object, resulting in a net force being exerted, either upwards or downwards. This is illustrated in the following figure.
That was always amazing to me that the lift in a plane is simply generated by the different air speeds above and below the wings. This alternator hypothetical would basically be considered an incompressible flow scenario if comparing it to liquids right? I def don't have the physics knowledge you do but have an appreciation for it. Generally everything in life you can figure out by looking at the physics and applying logic to the problem if physics is foreign to you then nothing will ever make sense or be apparent and it makes troubleshooting or designing anything near impossible.
 
That was always amazing to me that the lift in a plane is simply generated by the different air speeds above and below the wings. This alternator hypothetical would basically be considered an incompressible flow scenario if comparing it to liquids right? I def don't have the physics knowledge you do but have an appreciation for it. Generally everything in life you can figure out by looking at the physics and applying logic to the problem if physics is foreign to you then nothing will ever make sense or be apparent and it makes troubleshooting or designing anything near impossible.
I'm late to this discussion but the water analogy typically used to explain current (flows from high potential to low, potential differences can be used to do work, etc) goes only so far. In particular Bernoulli's principal doesn't really make sense for electrical current. Current is "compressible" - that's what a capacitor is, basically. Bernoulli basically says that if you increase resistance to flow, flow goes up (to maintain flux - it's basically an application of conservation of momentum). As we know, the opposite happens to electrical current. The water analogy makes sense to a degree, but it can go too far.

Another big difference is that electrical systems do work with fields, and changing electric fields create magnetic fields (that's how a voice coil works). With water the work is done by physical momentum and there's no "complimentary field" for something like a velocity field. Electrons don't actually flow through a wire like you might imagine they do.

In summary: **** be crazy, yo.
 
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