The Lifetime warrantied Alternator

[sternwake]

I installed newer transpo 540Hd voltage regulator to test function, and to collect some data on how much field current it was sending to the rotor in different circumstances.

I was wondering if the voltage sent to the field terminal was steady, and the VR varied the amperage to the rotor, or if both voltage and amperage would go up and down together.

Turns out it is the latter. My wattmeter only comes on about 3 volts and the wattmeter actually flashes on and off quickly with a full battery and no significant load on alternator. I could power the wattmeter separately to read
field voltage below 3, but likely wont.

With a load, Foglights headlamps on high beam, voltage climbs 5 to 7v with an occassional spike to 9v and 3 amps for about 21 watts of field current, much less than I expected.

The wattmeter voltage readings are not steady, its Ammeter was reading amps at 14.7v. I had my DC clampmeter on alternator field wire measuring Amps at field voltage..

I'm going to see if a capacitor helps the wattmeter's readings from bouncing around so much.

I did not spend a bunch of time experimenting, yet, as it is a quiet Sunday and I don;t want to be revving my engine or starting and stopping it all the time.

The Wattmeter's ammeter was reading much lower than the clampmeter, but it was reading amps @ 14.7v vs amps @ ~ 5v to 7v field voltage.

The wattmeter is not suitable for measuring for field output amps as Field output wire is + and the wattmeters shunt is on the (-).

I never saw more than 1.21@14.7v amps going into the VRd. Headlamps on high beams and fogs are around 25 amps. My battery is full and not able to add any significant load. and the sun was still shining with~4.5 solar amps available.

Lots of curiosity has been satisfied, despite not finding limits of both VR and ALT when 'fully fielded', and errors with solar controller trying to control voltage as well.

Will see if new VR changes alternator behavior when hot, if I ever get the engine /alternator hot again. Grocery store is 1.5 miles away, and no where else to go, and idling is not enjoyable to me.

[sternwake]

I went to Trader Joes today's, on the other side of the hill. Fiona's beef jerky treats were running way too low

I was about 47AH from full when I started the van around 11:30. The solar had brought the battery to 12.8v plus at that time. I was likely 65 or more AH from full, at sunrise.

A few hours of solar, really cuts into the amount of amperage the battery can accept. 62 amps after start up raised battery voltage quickly to 14.7v. but if I had started the engine 3 hours earlier it would have been able to max out the alternator, perhaps even at higher rpms.

Once things were hot, same behavior, 525 rpm and it struggles to maintain the voltage I set, but just 75 more rpm and there is 65+ amps available and voltage nearly instantly rises right back upto 14.7v.
Stop at a redlight, put it in neutral and 600 rpm and enough amperage to hold 14.7v. put it in drive, 525 rpm and 32 amps into battery had voltage dropped to less than 13.5v.

So the good news is my Old voltage regulator is still working fine, there is no difference in Alternator behavior between it and the new one.

The bad news, is I was kind of hoping it would perform better with new VR at 525rpm. 525 hot rpm the output is pretty pathetic, but 600 rpm and it is over 60 amps, but it was hot, but not nearly at full temperature. I've not set up the themocouple on it yet, Thats a guess based on previous experience with Bosch/chrysler Alternator

When parked, waiting in lone 6 feet apart outside the store , I had all fans on, Hvac blower motor, rear intake fans, ceiling exhaust and passsenger side acrylic shroud. Fiona, strangely, did not want to go for a walk, after she saw me install my N95 mask and seen a few other masked bandits walk by. She knows something is up.

The solar was making 12 amps and my battery monitor was reading -11 amps, powering my windtunnel, and water heater and cranked fridge up too to put as much load on battery as I could, within reason.

On the way back amps after start up were not much more than 70 an tapering and the same rpms delivered the same amperage as stated above.

So 525 rpm when engine is hot, ~39 to 42 amps total alternator output, 600 rpm engine hot, 62+ amps available.

Yes my old Chrysler/Bosch was able to perform better at 525 rpm.

Am I concerned?
Negative, as 'relatively' soon, both, will almost be able to deliver more amperage than I can use, Until I get a bigger inverter and have it powering a tablesaw.

I really need to have the battery more discharged before I can really find the higher rpm amperage limits of the alternator. Probably not going to drive for a week+ as I have supplies for that long.

But I hear Ventura county beaches are not closed and surfing is not a 1000$ fine like it is here.
Going a bit stir crazy

[rvpopeye]

So the tweaks on rebuild have returned it to life ,,,check , stress test on the way to Ventura,,,,,!

[sternwake]

Well, the Chrysler/Bosch 50/120, with formerly misaligned brushes, is still in a box on the shelf, untouched in many weeks.  Other projects have taken precedence.

Gas down the street is still 2.79$ a gallon, and My gas tank was last added to, at the Arizona border in early Feb, for less than that price.

The West Swell is fading, should have been in Ventura yesterday.  Mixed reports coming out of there regarding if surfing is allowed or not.  or whether it is being enforced or not, or whether it is just the beach  parking lots closed, or not.

Seems there is a collective misinformation campaign coming from surfers that live there, they certainly don't want a bunch of LA  or Orange county or  Sandyeggo douchebags infiltrating their lineups.

No word on the possibility of opening the beaches here, but they did  re-open a few walking trails they had closed.

There is a tropical cyclone system forming 1300 miles south,  about 2 weeks before the  season officially starts.  It could be a swell maker.  Might still wind up in Ventura

[rvpopeye]

Road trip music

[sternwake]

Finally maxed out the ND alternator with a well depleted battery..

Most amperage I saw into my battery was 92 amps at 2400 engine rpm. About 12 amps are needed to run ignition and fuel pump. My fridge and fans could have been gobbling up another 5 amps, so it appears this 120 amp rated alternator is maxing out at about 109 amps, or less.

What was obviously different was that it was able to make this maximum, at lower rpms than the chrysler Bosch which can make its 120 amp rating, but it needs ~2100+ engine rpm in order to do so an area my engine spends little time.
I was sitting at a red light after 4 miles of freeway driving, in park, holding idle at 800 rpm and it was holding that 92 amps into the battery. , but let off throttle and put it in drive, idle falls to 525 rpm, and 32 amps max into battery.

The Chrysler Bosch at 800 hot rpm is about 68 to 78 amps max, but can do nearly 50 amps into the battery when hot, at 525 rpm.

Anyway pretty interesting differences, to me anyway.

Obviously if doing a lot of hot idling hoping for max charging the Bosch is better, and if driving in the higher rpm ranges, which is rare, the Bosch can output more amperage as well. The ND is pathetically weak at hot idle, but a few hundred more rpm and it maxes out @ ~11 less amps than its 120 amp rating.

The roads driven, and the traffic lights will determine which alternator will recharge the battery faster, and the differences might not be all that great, or consequential.




The copper bridges on the rectifier of the Bosch, are thin copper. Seems 120 of potential amperage flow is having to pass through way too little copper cross section, and must be point source heating to an incredible degree.

I bought 3 mm thick copper bar stock to remake them, and remade one, with a U shaped bend to allow for expansion and contraction like the originals, but the 3mm is actually closer to 4mm, and that U shaped bend is totally not going to allow for length changes is it heats and cools. I cursed a bunch, put everything away, and ordered some 1.5mm thick copper bar stock which is basically 2x as thick as the bridges on there now and I can eliminate some resistance causing electron choke points.

Once I return the Bosch to duty, I'll dissect the ND and see if it too can benefit from thicker copper, then think about how to mount it in place of my useless AC compressor for dual externally regulated alternators.

[sternwake]

Made a few new 1.5mm  inter diode copper straps.  I can stack new and old straps, and the protective tailcap still fits, just barely. 

 More surface area for heat dissipation,  and should have much less resistance, depending on how much current these actually carry...

   
   

[sternwake]

So these copper straps carry 3 phase Alternating current from the Stator's 3 ring terminals
   

The 3 copper straps each spread the load among 2 pairs of Diodes, the diodes then turn the AC current to DC.

120 amps output.....divided by 6 is 20 amps for each diode pair. but of course there are losses across the diodes, otherwise they would not heat up to such an incredible degree so perhaps 25 amps for each diode pair? 

Each copper strap is basically diverting half the load of oneof the stators 3 outputs to two other diodes and there is a tiny cross section of copper, even for  just 20 amps, so my new copper straps will have 3 to 5 times the copper cross section for passing current and more surface area for heat dissipation and more thermal mass to store the perhaps less generated heat over more total copper.

There should be some degree of increased performance/efficiency, once the alternator is hot.

Whether it will be noticeable or not, is another matter.  

The + output stud is 6mm, In theory I could fatten this output stud, but am likely going to just make some more copper nuts to mate with a lot of surface area so the magnetic steel nut and stud, need not carry all the current, as designed, but thick copper can mate to base and ring terminal can mete to copper and the stud and nut merely clamp the two together.

Am interested to get a look inside the ND alternator.  See where potential improvements might lay.  I've plenty of 99.2% pure copper left.

[sternwake]

Here is the output stud in the background, and the rectifier plate and the ring terminal is to the condenser/capacitor.

   


You can easily see the Aluminum rectifier plate is warped from the condenser ring terminal being compressed under the tall magnetic hex nut, onto which the ring terminal is supposed to reside.

 The knurled 6mm output stud, is mildly magnetic. It was loose, and easily pushed out without any tools.

This photo shows the rectifier plate is actually 2 plates, separated by an insulating layer.  The bottom  part is grounded to the alternator body, the top layer goes to the 6mm output stud.  A diode for each layer.

   


   

There was a bunch of zinc oxide grease between the bottom of the rectifier and the alternator body. to transfer heat from diodes to alternator casing/body. 

Ideally, for maximum heat transfer from rectifier to Alternator casing, the surfaces would be totally flat, and mate perfectly.  Metal on metal, NO thermal grease required.

These mating surfaces were both dimpled, and not flat.  

I have a sheet of plate glass with 220 grit adhered.

Here is one pass of the bottom of the rectifier plate on that perfectly flat sandpaper showing all the high spots as being shinier.

   

The alternator body is similarly dimpled.  There is no way those dimples align/mate.  The two screws holding the rectifier plate to the alternator body could never exert enough force to mate dimples of  rectifier bottom to alternator body.

Flattening these two mating surface, minimizing the thermal grease required, should greatly increase transfer of heat from rectifier/diodes to the alternator casing.  All the air  from the pulley mounted puller fan, is sucked in across these diode packs/ aluminum reciifier plates then through the alternator and out the front radially next to the pulley.  The alternator body is harder to flatten, and I will not get it perfect though.

There is room for more thermal dissipation by adding finned heatsinks to the open areas of the rectifier plates, but......

[B and C]

Just a thought, don't those dimpled surfaces give more surface area to dissipate heat?