anyone done twin alternator or hi-output

[woz31 0]

hi, anybody done a twin alternator set up or hi-output conversion looking for 200A or more. thanks in advance

[dr_mat 0]

You trying to keep your beer cool?

[Kevin Bacon 5]

I doubt it's for that kind of ice you berk :D

 

I'm sure there must be a 200+amp alt option for the 3.2 lump? It went into the Cayenne, which had winches and electric diffs and what not. Twin alternator - messy.

 

Better off with twin batteries and split charging from one alt.

[dr_mat 0]

I might be inclined to go 48volts if I was looking for 200+ amps ... jeez .. !

[Supercharged 2]

Are you using your car as a generator to run your house?

[Kevin Bacon 5]

Big amps pull big current :D

 

Speaking of houses, I switched everything on (hob, both showers, all stereos, PCs, oven, washing machine, kettle, iron etc etc) and the current pull was 110 A, so yeah, you could quite happily run a house from a Corrado's 120A alternator :D

[dr_mat 0]

Fortunately I know you're taking the mick.. ;)

 

The Corrado's 120A alternator delivers about 1.4 KW of power. If it was outputting 240 volts it would only produce 6 amps. If it was capable of delivering your 26KW that your house was consuming then it would probably be about the same size as the VR6 it is bolted onto the side of .. !! :)

[wormy 0]

I think there are companies that create custom alternators..

The only one that comes to my mind is this one - http://www.excessiveamperage.com - but there are probably some in the UK too.

If he can get his hands on a stock alternator housing, I'm pretty sure he can build a 200-300amp version.. And iirc his prices aren't bad! :norty:

[dr_mat 0]

Useless fact-et for today.

 

Kev's house is capable of consuming less than one tenth the amount of energy that a completely standard Corrado VR6 is capable of consuming.

 

If you had an electrical power draw in your house equivalent to a VR6 engine's prodigious fuel consumption your electricity bill would be about £300,000 per year. Does that put the price of petrol into context for a few people? :)

[woz31 0]

3 slash amps with a fool on the volume dial , each amp fused for 60A and i use a pg crossover {9v line driver} my main goal is sq I can hear the power fading when i crank it up and i am bored of blowing speakers due to inconsistant power , i would prefere 1 alternator but i am not in the market for expensive custom alternator as i have burnt all my dollars on car hifi. think i might try an a6 allroad 190a alt. as it is water cooled. going to upgrade engine earth to 1 awg to match amp feed

[woz31 0]

just reading posts if i went 48v how would that be reduced to 12v again, i see what your saying with regards to voltage but going up then back down cant be efficient

[woz31 0]

forgot to say i have a brand new vr6 120a alt. and i run the ac pump as an idler

[dr_mat 0]

increasing the volts just means you don't have to run such thick cables everywhere and you don't run such a big risk of setting the whole thing on fire. If you go for an AC alternator you could probably produce 48V AC and distribute that to individual AC->DC step-down transformers. The overall losses would probably be much less than the power loss of running 200A through a copper cable!

[Kevin Bacon 5]

How much current do starter motors pull?

 

My battery is in the back and I'm thinking of downgrading from 0 AWG to 2, maybe 4.

 

Mainly because I have an Audi Q7 loom at home (don't ask) and I noticed it's starter motor cable is VERY thin compared to the Corrado's. And that's to turn over a 4.2 TDI. It got me thinking about whether 0 AWG is a bit overkill, but I don't know what the current rating of that is either. Although thinking about it more, the output wire from my 120A alt isn't exactly big gauge.

[dr_mat 0]

The starter is a few inches from the supply, and is connected by enormous cables. If you're prepared to run cables like that all round the car, then by all means run 200 amps at 12v.

I don't know how feasible it is, but I know that modern cars are moving towards 48v for this very reason and maybe you can take some of that tech and retro fit it into a Corrado .. !

 

According to WP, 0 AWG (i.e. 8mm diameter copper) will carry 125-190 amps max, depending on the casing thickness, but the "fusing current" is 1900 amps if it carries it for 10 seconds or less. That's why you can get away with thinner cables for a car with an electronically controlled starter - it can guarantee the starter won't be engaged for more than 5 seconds because you ain't got a key to override the computer's decisions about that.

[Kevin Bacon 5]

1900 amps, LOL! Hmmm, food for thought. I think modern cables pack more strands under thinner PVC sheathing, so although it looks thinner, it actually carries the same current as the older, fewer stranded cable. In theory! Only one way to find out!

[dr_mat 0]

Actually current carrying capability is almost 100% proportional to cross sectional area of the cable, regardless of whether it's made up of one large strand or multiple smaller strands. You use stranded for flexibility rather than current carrying capability. A stranded cable of X diameter has a smaller current carrying capability than a solid core of the same diameter. (If you manage to do a perfect tesselation of round strands of wire you'll make your fortune..)

[woz31 0]

it would appear that there is a 180A alt. fitted to the toe-wrag looks like time for flea bay

[mikkijayne 0]

I used to run two alternators on my mk2 Polo many years ago. The stock 55A for the car, and a 90A hybrid for the stereo! It worked perfectly, with a second battery in the boot. It was all controlled by a relay on the ignition, so the two systems were completely electrically isolated on the +ve side, sharing the car body as ground.

 

I only did it because there wasn't a decent alternator I could find that would fit on the Polo's 1.3 at the time, but it did help with preventing any electrical noise from getting in to the stereo. Always helpful when the sound-off judges play their zero-data track lol! It also meant I could play the stereo all day without the engine running and still drive home afterwards - useful for bbqs n shows n stuff ;-)

[woz31 0]

i have had a read on this and have decieded to fit twin 120A alternators the thinking being an alternator will produce about 80% of its capacity at idle therefore two 120's should give nearly 200A @ idle that should keep 3 slash amps well fed.