Quote:
Originally Posted by steffen707
When you said that it won't drop below 12.5 volts, do you mean that you physically don't let it drop below 12.5 volts because you use your dash mounted switch to turn it back on?
Or are you saying that with your kill switch the alternator is always off and just doesn't fall below 12.5volts? Because if the later is the case, it would make me think that the alternator is stuck in this 12.5 volt "low setting" that Gasoline Fumes says mine might be in.
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Neither. An example: today doing P&G with EOC on my way to work, in the cold, with the alternator off, the voltage would get down to 12.3 during the pulse phase and stay thereabouts for the whole pulse length, whether 5 seconds or an entire minute. Then during the EOC glide phase, with decreased load from the ignition system, the voltage would return to 12.6 or 12.7, which is near full charge. With my previous battery, which did not have as much capacity, I would drive for miles without seeing the voltage return to 12.5, whether the engine was off or on. But it is true that this design will not accomplish your desire to be able to cut the alt off and have it shut down, without cutting the engine for at least a second, as I do with my injector cut-off. I think drmiller's idea of a small light bulb on the line to drain residual voltage might be another way to accomplish your goal. I just didn't need it because my car is off so much of the time, so often, while I drive.
I have not had the alternator on for days now. It's all grid charging.