oddball
Dedicated LVC Member
Looking for other folk's experience.
Recent ordered a DB Electrical 200 amp alternator. Here are a few pics alongside the stock for reference. You can click on them to get to my flickr page with higher res version.
Sooo... This board pukes on embedded codes. Let's try the old fashioned way. OK, WTF, seriously? Must this thing turn every flickr URL into a broken flash?
www.flickr.com/photos/ostermannia/5176882411/
There are no external indications that this alternator is non-stock. No part numbers or anything. You can see that the stator has two wires going to the regulator instead of one for each winding and it has an overdrive pulley. This unit clicked when turned by hand.
After install, it performed horribly at idle with a dramatic voltage sag. I swapped back to the stock - with the DB pulley - and got the following readings:
Clearly underperforming at idle! Only marginally better at high RPMs. Seems odd to me that an extra 0.2 V results in 10 Amps. Seems like that's a lot more for the battery to be sinking. Any thoughts from the EE guys out there? I haven't done much investigation into auto electrical and battery charging methods. I'm not sure those 10 amps are worth the extra money. ie, I don't think the battery is discharging by 10 amps when using the stock alternator - it would've died a long time ago if that was the case - but not certain where else that extra current is going.
The clicking was also gone when I pulled it back out. I called DB with this info, they sent me a return label to ship back to them. I asked that they inspect/fix/return, but they just gave me a refund instead. So A+ to DB for not hassling me, but I'm still curious what happened.
Hmm... First picture looks like there might be a broken fin. Never noticed that before. Might indicate some mishandling at some point.
So, anyone else using these and can share their findings? Hopefully something was just wrong with mine - likely on the regulator board - but I didn't tear into it. Might guess it's acting like a one-wire that doesn't kick on at low RPMs, but the connector was plugged in well and clearly worked on the stock.
Recent ordered a DB Electrical 200 amp alternator. Here are a few pics alongside the stock for reference. You can click on them to get to my flickr page with higher res version.
Sooo... This board pukes on embedded codes. Let's try the old fashioned way. OK, WTF, seriously? Must this thing turn every flickr URL into a broken flash?
www.flickr.com/photos/ostermannia/5176882411/
There are no external indications that this alternator is non-stock. No part numbers or anything. You can see that the stator has two wires going to the regulator instead of one for each winding and it has an overdrive pulley. This unit clicked when turned by hand.
After install, it performed horribly at idle with a dramatic voltage sag. I swapped back to the stock - with the DB pulley - and got the following readings:
Code:
RPM V amp @alt amp@fan
stock DB stock DB stock DB
680 13.3 11.5 83 20 42 37
680 14 12.4 52 16 off off
1300 13.4 13.6 91 104 42 43
1300 14 14.2 52 62 off off
2200 13.3 13.6 93 105 42 43
2200 14 14.2 54 62 off off
The clicking was also gone when I pulled it back out. I called DB with this info, they sent me a return label to ship back to them. I asked that they inspect/fix/return, but they just gave me a refund instead. So A+ to DB for not hassling me, but I'm still curious what happened.
Hmm... First picture looks like there might be a broken fin. Never noticed that before. Might indicate some mishandling at some point.
So, anyone else using these and can share their findings? Hopefully something was just wrong with mine - likely on the regulator board - but I didn't tear into it. Might guess it's acting like a one-wire that doesn't kick on at low RPMs, but the connector was plugged in well and clearly worked on the stock.