Voltage on battery low ?

  • tnjk
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Voltage on battery low ? was created by tnjk

Posted 4 years 6 months ago #193176
After being on the roadside with a flat battery, our local AA (Anwb) had the verdict that the battery was poorly charged by the alternator.
As an alternative to change the complete alternator, I only changed the rectifier pack with the brushes.
Here is the old one.
Clearly one of the brushes has gone.
So after mounting the new bosch rectifier pack, my expectations were high.
At the battery I only measure 14.1 Volt, where 14,4 would be expected.
At the alternator I measure 14,3 volts, so I lose 0,2 volts. Big deal you would say, but I think this lack of voltage at the battery terminals also prevents proper and somewhat fast charging the battery.
These 0.2 volts are being lost in the red (+) cable, no voltage loss on the ground connection.
I also took the 80 amp fuseholder apart, cleaned it, pushed the wire connections extra firmly with a pipe wrench, and made sure the fuse is firmly clamped in its holder. This gave a small improvement, not mutch.
I made a schematic diagram with all voltages I measured in the situation how it is right now.

Of course I am interested in your opinion and experience.
by tnjk
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Replied by G0RSQ on topic Voltage on battery low ?

Posted 4 years 6 months ago #193179
Dont really see an issue here, without knowing other factors!

Where your voltage measurements made with the engine running?

If so how much current was flowing in the cable at the time of the measurement?

You need to know this to see if the voltage drop is significant.

By ohms law, if the alternator is charging the battery at say 20 Amps (flat battery conditions) then the resistance of the wire from alternator to battery is 0.1 ohm
If it is only charging at 1 Amp, the the resistance is 0.2 ohms
and at 100mA the resistance would be 2 ohms.

So knowing how much current is passing is inportant before judging a cable resistance purely by the voltage drop.

Non of the values above are high, so 0.2V loss is not significant.

Also the battery does not charge by voltage! It charges by current. It needs voltage to move current I agree, but measuring voltage tells you nothing about the charging current of a battery.

Befor looking further I would recomend you get the battery checked using a "drop load tester", as a poor battery will give more charging issues than a 0.2V drop in a cable. This will measure the internal resistance of the battery and show if one of the cells are bad. Battery voltage alone will not show a cell fault.

A bad battery connection can give charging issues.

Brushes as shown would not give an issue, assuming they made good contact with the slip rings, though replacement is never a bad thing.
by G0RSQ

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  • tnjk
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Replied by tnjk on topic Voltage on battery low ?

Posted 4 years 6 months ago #193185
Yes I did some more investigation today, the model in my first post is a bit to simple.
The wire coming from the alternator, through the fuse, does not go directly to the battery. The wire from the fuse is connected to the starter engine, and from the starter engine it leads to the battery, they are connected at the same terminal. That is also were the problem was, this connection was corroded. So I cleaned it with a copper brush, made sure the wires are perfectly connected to the cable lugs, to ensure the least possible resistance, and mounted it with some carbon grease and a new M8 nut, back onto the starter engine.
That did the trick. The battery is charging at 4 amps, and has 14,4 Volt, The alternator output is 14.6 Volt. The battery was almost full, so I would not expect any higher charging current. The alternator delivers 20 amps, whereas the battery only receives 4 amps. I think the 16 extra amps are needed for the oxygen sensor heating and ignition, the radio and heater fan were off during measurement.
I was waiting for the amps to drop at the alternator, I thought when the car is at working temperature the oxygen sensor heating would shut off, but it doesn't, with a battery full, the MG permanently needs 16 amps, if this is normal I don't know, but it all seems to be working fine problem solved.
Last Edit:4 years 6 months ago by tnjk
Last edit: 4 years 6 months ago by tnjk. Reason: wrong picture
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Replied by Keymaster on topic Voltage on battery low ?

Posted 4 years 6 months ago #193222
I noticed that you took the 80 amp fuse holder apart, did it show any signs of corrosion or shorting?
I came to a rolling stop on the motorway a while ago due to a short in the cable going into the fuse holder, it also burnt out a fuse lug but interestingly the fuse didn't blow, it was the short circuit that cut out the alternator.

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