[sbbunno]

for some reason when i use my lights at night my crank battery drops giving me dim lights
im running h4 55/60w bulbs
not sure what size battery i have but its larger than stock
and an alternater from the ford upgrade
i'v ruled out the secondary battery as the proplem as it has just been reconditiond
i also jus washed the terminals and nothin has changed

i really would appreciat some help

thanks scott

[MacDaddy]

sbbunno wrote:

for some reason when i use my lights at night my crank battery drops giving me dim lights
im running h4 55/60w bulbs
not sure what size battery i have but its larger than stock
and an alternater from the ford upgrade
i'v ruled out the secondary battery as the proplem as it has just been reconditiond
i also jus washed the terminals and nothin has changed

i really would appreciat some help

thanks scott

Sounds a bit like a bad earth somewhere, and its using another wire/way to find earth...

[nissvit]

sbbunno wrote:

i'v ruled out the secondary battery as the proplem as it has just been reconditiond

thanks scott

how do you recondition a battery??

when you put the falcon alt in did you check to make sure the sense wire is getting the correct voltage?
does the charge light come on when the ignition is on but engine not running?

what voltage are both batteries sitting at when the lights are on & off respectively?

Do you have a decent sized earth between the body/Battery & the engine?

check the little earth wire that runs from the dissy to the firewall.. if your earths are poor this one will be taking the current and often fries- burning off the insulation..

[sbbunno]

[quote="nissvit"]
how do you recondition a battery??
quote]

when i say recondition i mean trickle charged and checked the water with somethin (i forget)
poor choice o words my bad

its runnning 15.1v on main and 15.0v on secondary wile jus running
with nothing on
but when i run my lights it dosn go above 12.8
isnt 15.1 a bit high?

[sbbunno]

o and the earths dont look fried or damaged in any way
is it posssible to over load one spot?

[sbbunno]

ok did some playing around and the charge stays around 13.2 on both but and dosent drop whith the lights
but dose when i use spotties is this jus the alternater cant keep up or should it still be able to charge properly

[Ben_Sierra]

If you've got a 110 amp ford alt it ought to be able to keep up... 110 amps is a lot of juice!

[royce]

at idle the voltage will drop, rev it a bit it should come up pretty well

[sbbunno]

ok ill check it latter thanks fellas

[nissvit]

15+ volts is way too much, max volts should be around 14.8.

A few things are possible that will make an alternator do what you have,
- the sense wire for the alternator takes its feed from under the dash, so if you have high resistance joints under your dash (or are feeding large loads from under-dash postives) the sense wire will appear to be at a lower voltage so the alternator will in turn increase the charge to compensate, and will over charge.... or

- the sense wire isn't connected to the correct sense wire (ie it is connected to the wire that comes from the charge light). As the fields try to drag more current to increase the output of the alternator the current available becomes limited due to the small dash light in series with field circuit. The dash lamp will limit current to less than 1amp, where at full load the field current will be up five amps.

[nissvit]

falcon alts try to regulate between 14.2 and 14.4 volts,
If you are only getting 13.2 volts your batteries arn't going to be getting much charge.

[sbbunno]

hmmm ok thats a bit to think about
ill have a look tommorow ill have to get dad to read these post's i think iv dun all i can