I figured the VR was not getting hot enough to damage it as it is designed to be underhood.
I have noticed my voltage sag at hot idle on warmer days is more pronounced than when I first hooked everything up, and also 'seems' worse when the dashboard has been baking in the sun (the VR lies just below)
I'd also had it resting up against the firewall with little room for convection currents. WestEnd sent me a bunch of fans with the heatsinks and it was very simple to attach one to the heatsink so I figured i will try it. Flipping it over so the fan is unrestricted should also help keep it cooler. I'll see if there is an improvement in voltage sag at hot idle today. not sure the fan can be heard over the engine but I might put a Noctua low noise adapter 9 resistor) inline to slow it down if so.
Part of me wants to make a shroud so this fan pulls in colder air from outside the dashboard.
The turns counter on the potentiometer, is basically being ignored as it is not repeatable depending on the load. If the battery is full, 7.2 will have the battery shoot to 14.8v, where that setting the night before had the battery at 14.3. I don;t mind a pot twiddling but it would be nice if the turns counter did more accurately reflect target voltage on both a full and depleted battery.
I've almost got the Bayite hall effect ammeter fully functional to read total alternator current. My ring terminals just barely fit through its opening.
I still want to upgrade my alternator/ battery feed cable from the doubled 6awg to 1awg, but the doubled 6 seems to be able to get the group27 to absorption voltage nearly instantly if the rpms and 70+ amps are there.
