Lakes , streams and other charging system things

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HenryJ
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Lakes , streams and other charging system things

Post by HenryJ »

I am sure you have heard the electrical system described in terms of water. The battery is the reservoir, or lake. The system is fed and serviced by wires , which are the streams, or probably a better analogy would be pipes. And the alternator is the water supply , faucet or pump.

Voltage is the lake or a static measurement. Amperage is the flow. The alternator is the supply.

When the alternator supplies all the amperage , or flow needed voltage is maintained and the battery or lake stays full as demand increases and supply is unable to maintain all of the load the lake is drained.

Obviously a bigger lake will help a system with a small pump, although the pump will need to run a long time to keep up. Add a bigger pump to keep the lake full and you may need bigger pipes to make any difference in filling the lake.

OK, all that makes sense to me. There are some things that are not addressed where heat is involved and unused energy being released as heat, but lets move on.

What needs to be clear to me is why...

The pump is hot, all the pipes are hot. The pump is running at a set rpm and delivering 94 gallons per minute of water to the system. The lake is only maintaining 13 feet of water depth , when it should be 14 to 14.5 feet deep.
So we try running the pump faster. This does take more power , so we just add enough to speed it up a little at a time. We try 5% faster and with the same demand the flow decreases to 70 gallons per minute and the lake maintains 14 foot of depth.

This is satisfactory performance for this system. But why?
It just hasn't clicked for me yet. Why running it faster would yield a slower flow and greater reserve?

Obviously the first try had exceeded the available flow from the pump and had started to drain the lake. But when we speeded up the pump to meet the demand and keep the lake full why did the flow, or demand decrease?

I just can't make this work. Perhaps it is the heat that poses an issue here?

We know the pipes from the lake to the pump ar more than sufficient, could the pipes from the demand be an issue here? If they were an issue, then the increased output from the pump should not have changed that.

Any thoughts, or help?

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Post by coffeedrnkr »

ummmmmm, so would this "pump" be sucking out of the same lake that it was putting it into. I got confused, are we talking about an electrical system or are we talking about an actual lake. hmmm I definately got a little confused
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Post by RocK »

HJ that is the BEST analogy that i have ever seen. You even slipped in the voltage as the depth and such.

But I am really reaching here HJ but my best guess... Could it be frequency loss? Most of that is introduced with radio and such but frequency does effect voltage. Also heat is a big deal. (I know you know this) but that is how voltage regulators work. They reduce the energy by taking power and turning it into heat and radiating it into open air. If your circuits are turning your power into heat and giving it off you will see a power drop. Could it be the regulator not allowing the alt to put out any more than "14.5" volts and getting into the uppper R's is overheating the whole system. I am trying to give you as many ideas as i can here fella. Trust me the theory is good and it should work. So I am as confused as you are. I will talk to a buddy of mine and ask about it. He has a BS in electronics. Most of what he says is BS but on occasion he comes through.

To get this straight... You tossed in a bigger alt and ramped up the speed. Only to lose voltage at a higher RPM and have a better results with a lower RPM. All the parts a good. How about your grounds.. Maybe add another? From the Battery to the block. I dont remember if you did that already. Ok I hope this is of any kinda help.


EDIT: What about belt slippage under load?
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Post by Rusty »

coffeedrnkr wrote:I got confused, are we talking about an electrical system or are we talking about an actual lake. hmmm I definately got a little confused


When I first read the title, I thought HenryJ had accidently driven into a lake or something and shorted out his electrical system. I expected to see a pic of his Crewcab, up to it's windows in water. :shock:

Glad to see I was wrong! :) Good analogy of an electrical system though. I never though about it that way.
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Every time someone tries to explain electricity to me by comparing it to water I get worried about electricity spewing out of my home's wall outlets and wondering why we don't have wall faucets :idea:
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Post by HenryJ »

RocK wrote:... Could it be frequency loss? Most of that is introduced with radio and such but frequency does effect voltage.
That is something I had not considered.
Also heat is a big deal. but that is how voltage regulators work. They reduce the energy by taking power and turning it into heat and radiating it into open air. If your circuits are turning your power into heat and giving it off you will see a power drop. Could it be the regulator not allowing the alt to put out any more than "14.5" volts and getting into the uppper R's is overheating the whole system.
That is something to consider, and you may have the answer there. It may indeed have cooled slightly. When it was hot the regulator can shut down to prevent over heating. But I would think that the amperage and voltage would both go down.
To get this straight... You tossed in a bigger alt and ramped up the speed. Only to lose voltage at a higher RPM and have a better results with a lower RPM. All the parts a good. How about your grounds.. Maybe add another? From the Battery to the block. I dont remember if you did that already. EDIT: What about belt slippage under load?
Thanks for the input!
You have it backward there at the last though. Slower = high amperage flow and low voltage , Faster = lower amperage flow and higher voltage

The only thing that doesn't fit is the lower amperage. I may have to tear it all apart and recreate the conditions to test this again. Perhaps there was a wildcard.

Oh, the ground should be good too. I added a 4 gauge cable from the battery to the alternator mount. This is in addition to the stock grounds.

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Post by RocK »

Well had a talk with the BS expert. LOL . He is thinkin the regulator is being overworked and is "trying to do its job" but is losing one or the other. Gain amperage at the cost of voltage for example... Also he was asking me if you disconnected the batt during install cause maybe the alt regulator was damaged if you had not.
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Post by HenryJ »

The gain in amperage at the cost of voltage is a given, and makes perfect sense.
The regulator is working fine :D and yes the battery was disconnected during the swap :lol:
It really doesn't make sense.

There may be a "wildcard" though. Our PCM seems to be interacting with the alternators regulator.
I have stopped at a light, engine hot, fans running, AC on, DRL , radios , etc running and expect to see a drop when ingear at low idle. It will hold 13.9 volts for a little while , then if things are especially hot rise to 14 volts.

It is like something "Herbie" would do. Increase voltage when it is needed most? :crazy:

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Post by HenryJ »

Never underestimate the value of a good deep lake.
This lake has several ponds. Lets say six. One of these ponds just will not completely fill no matter how much you pump into it. This makes the pump heat and it is unable to maintain the depth for the whole lake. As a result the depth of the lake suffers as does the supply available to the whole system. Be sure your lake is as full as it should be and it will fill to the proper level.

This all comes from a recent adventure with my charging system. I play with things way too much, probably. I was having some regulator problems, and alternator problems. Finally I got those resolved and the charging system beefed up to maintain voltage.
After reading an article on batteries I became aware that AGM batteries hold a slightly higher voltage. I started to suspect I may have a bad cell in mine. It would maintain reasonable voltage around 12.3-12.5 , but would dip to 11.8 sometimes. It would not go less than 11 during cranking and under a load.
I did not know that the battery should be 12.8-13.5 with a full charge and maintain that level pretty easily. Roughly .5 volts higher than I expected.
Once replaced the whole system must have sighed a huge sigh of relief.
The system now maintains closer to 14.7 volts , whereas prior to this it stayed closer to 14.2. I really didn't think that the battery would so greatly affect the charging voltage. Live and learn.

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