Generator being back-fed from battery

[Jerry Cohen]

Originally Posted by Chas H

I know all about it. You're not the only one here that has worked on cars.

The tag is there for people who don't know all about it. So that they don't come running back to the parts store claiming the regulator and/or gen is "defective". I used to sell parts, back when people used to drive cars with generators as daily drivers. You wouldn't believe how many people claimed the regulator and/or generator was defective when in fact, they had not polarized they system.

Once the part was returned, since it wasn't truly defective and was used, guess who took the loss? I did.

My rebuilder once told me that 94% of the units returned as defective were fine.

[Arthur Dalton]

<< You wouldn't believe how many people claimed the regulator and/or generator was defective when in fact, they had not polarized they system.

>>


Seen it many, many times..
I was brought up working on farm equipment , so we learned charging system polarizing by the age of 12.. There was no such thing as an Alternator back then.
...and most stuff was 6 Volt too.............most Mechanical guys were not hip to basic electric circuits back then...but they were great fabricators/welders and such...when it came to taking off an electrical part , the extent of electrical knowledge was " Don't forget to Mark the wires !! "

Long-gone days...if you are not basic elecronics savy today, don't open the hood. And if you are, you have a DMM in your wrench hand...
And if you bring an elecrical part back today, the guy points to the sign on the Wall.

[mak]

Arthur could you shed some light that the alt on my 300SE always charges at 13.5 V, never reaches 14.oV even on a low battery charge
I did replace the regulator with a fresh one ;same voltage charge rate
All ground contacts are clean.
thanks
mak


[Alt. simply put standard generators out of business b/c they are technically superior... like Electronic ign put point ignitions out of business..they both accomplish the same thing, and the terms are often interchanged, speciialy with power generators.[/QUOTE]

[mespe]

Arthur: Isn't it more fun to adjust the idle on a M129 than explain the dif between alt's and gen's

Mak: Not sure but I would think 13.5 Volts is enough to keep a battery charged. I also tend to believe that corrosion on the battery wire will INCREASE the voltage produced by the alternator. (The higher the resistance, which usually is corrosion, the higher the voltage, becuase the load is lower)