Quote:
Originally Posted by nazali
Someone pls school me on Alternators.
So different people say different things and want to just understand on tis subject
Alternators:
I thought, that alternators charge the battery and also deliver v, DC for the electrical system. A friend of mine point blank said "you cannot charge a battery by driving a car" (as in, if the battery is low)
so I'm confused, as, we drive our cars and unless there is a problem, we don't always plug the car in ? Unless the demand is high (like short trips in winter) or a short in the electrical.
The message does come up saying "battery discharged or low while stopped, start engine" or similar putting on the Ctek overnight did the trick, but a 100km round trip didn't fix it.
So pls skool me yall !
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So here's how it works, when the car is in operation, both the battery and the alternator are an integral part. They both ground to the frame of the car. All the components ground to the frame of the car. The car is kind of running on the alternator, the alternator is charging the battery, except when the amp draw would exceed what the alternator can provide. At some point, the battery becomes fully charged. In situations where the amp draw exceeds what the alternator can provide, the battery acts as ballast to the system, momentarily being able to supply a few more amps for the spike, again they are both grounded to the frame of the car. If you can get the car running, you can theoretically remove the battery and drive the car on just the alternator, except for if you have an event where you need all those amps at once, like you are driving at night with the A/C on and decide to move a few switches that increase the load for a little bit. A possibility is collapsing the entire electrical system, then everything shuts down and goes "dark". That's what the battery is doing while you are driving around, providing ballast for the system.
Cars are coming with ever-increasing alternator amps, to help alleviate this and to power all the increased electronics that are coming on cars, but they are also moving to systems where the alternator does not continuously charge the battery, only during braking situations or for timed intervals, as this increases efficiency. I have noticed this may make it a little harder to charge a battery on these cars. I had a situation where the dealer had let the battery discharge and I had to go find some pretty big hills to drive down to get the charge back up so I wasn't getting a warning. After that, no issues.
Automotive alternators use a rectifier unit to change 3 phase AC to DC.
You can charge a battery, if the battery is low. You cannot charge a bad battery that won't hold a charge.