Alternator connections

[Peter.N.]

I had this belt flapping problem on a C5 and discovered it wasn't being fully tensioned, I thought it had stretched so fitted a new one with not much improvement, I subsequently found it was to long, fitted a shorter one and it was fine. Now I always measure the belts rather than ordering a stock one.

Peter

 

[Avocet]

Interesting chaps! Thanks for that. I've learned something! I was pretty certain it wouldn't be to do with altering charging rate because they can do that just by altering field coil current. Besides, it only works on over-run. I guess the combination of very high alternator outputs on modern vehicles, coupled with very long belt runs on flat belts has made "belt flutter" more of a problem than it used to be?

It will be interesting to see what happens when I couple it to a single cylinder 4 stroke engine with big gaps between power strokes!

 

[Avocet]

I'm afraid a car battery won't last long if its deep cycled, the plates fall to bits, you really need a proper deep cycle battery, a used heavy lorry battery would be better than a car one. There are quite a few used deep cycle ones on ebay that have been used as standby batteries, although they are not all that cheap now. The AGM type are the best.

Peter

Ta Peter. I wasn't planning on feeding the inverter from the battery for more than a few seconds at a time. It would just be there to absorb the surges in demand. The idea is that the engine would be turning the alternator all the time and I guess I'd want to run the central heating boiler (it's oil fired, so there's the oil pump, the water pump and a fan). I'd guess at maybe 500 Watts at most. It would also power the fridge and freezer (again, a few hundred watts apiece) and a few low energy lights. We have an 850 watt microwave (though I might turn off the other things to use that) which (being a microwave) would only be used for a few minutes at a time. The battery would be to supply the inverter while the microwave starts up, as I think the alternator might struggle.

 

[Peter.N.]

Fair enough then if you are only using it as a buffer. I have a set of decent batteries on a wind turbine which is only a standby system, it will run the house if necessary and has done but fortunately we don't get many power cuts so I'm hoping the batteries will survive. I have had them for 4 or 5 years and they seem to be fine still.

Peter