[brucepick]

Nice work!

A couple notes.

I thought I was pretty clever with my extra junkyard female alternator connector, but I was never able to physically get my fingers in there to connect it to the car's wiring. I think it could be done though.

After finding ~14V from the alternator, after disconnecting the 4 pin connector at the alt, I gave up on trying to figure out what I think you finally did achieve - a way to switch the alt on and off while driving, by managing two of those four wires.

Kudos to you, for keeping after it and for giving us a nice thorough writeup of what you found with photos and even videos. Great job!

What I did & why:
I based my alt disconnect on disconnecting the alt's output cable. I ran a 4 ga. cable from the alt to the battery + terminal, where it is connected via a hand-screw type battery disconnect switch. They are built for the smaller diam of the ground terminal so it needed some filing to fit the + post. Obviously you can't disable it while moving but my trunk-mounted lithium battery pack is set up to run 1-3 hours on a full charge. Only rarely have I had to switch the alt and the standard (front) lead acid battery back into the circuit to complete a drive.

Since my main battery is a lithium pack it won't optimally be charged by the alternator anyway. If I need to drive more than what the pack can handle, I need to pull over and change three switches, including the alternator disconnect that's under the hood. That done, the lead acid battery and the alternator will work as originally designed. Normally my lead battery only powers the starter and is recharged at home every few days, so it's not deeply drained.

Anyway, REAL NICE job on figuring out how to disable the alt from the driver's seat. Should be a real help to anyone else doing this kind of mod on a Gen 6 Civic.