Equip for Your Scenario
Up to lately with a 5er, camping in provincial parks in the winter off-grid, under the trees with no solar possible, and a two-hour time limit on generators 9-11am and 6-8pm (that one in the dark) usi...
Forum Discussion
BFL13 wrote:
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I have not tested to see if I get more amps by stepping on the gas. Would I?
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Dunno if this is relevant for yours, but RAM publishes a plot of my alternator's Amp output at 14V versus alternator rpm. Output starts low, rapidly rises, then almost plateaus with increasing rpms. The alternator's rated 220A is only reached at the highest rpms at the end of the plateau. (And amps decrease with alternator temperature.)
RAM also publishes a pulley multiplier for each engine so you can calculate the Amp output for that alternator at each engine's rpm from the graph. Turns out that my engine's idle rpm (~1000 rpm) is at the beginning of the graph's plateau, giving ~190A, and 220A is reached at the higher end of the plateau at ~2300 rpm. Not a huge difference.
My guess is that most alternator/engine/pulley combos would be designed this way, so that the engine would not have to be run at too high an rpm to get the rated Amp output.
But from Mex's comments this may not be the case ...
