Results for two trials, one of 10 miles, one of 35:--

Charge voltage remained at between 14.3volt and 14.5volt all the time. There was no reverting to float voltage as with the unmodded operation. (This could change over a long journey).
The original charge voltages matched exactly those for a jelly battery (13.9 after cranking and start, reverting to float charge of 13.5volt after a few mins).

There were no burning smells from the alternator nor did it seem hotter than the rest of the engine.

If a user wants to revert to original charging system, just wire a simple switch across the 33K0 resistor. Current here is tiny, any small switch will do.

This new charging voltage used to be used for wet batteries, and I do think wet batteries are far and away better value for money than the later AGM and jelly types.

I've looked into the gassing of batteries, which is important with AGMs , I can't see this will be a problem, esp. with calcium-loaded types. I take the opinions of some who have worked in lead-acid battery manufacture, because there's much in the way of wrong ideas out there. One website actually said the newer batteries were suitable for the "stop-start" cars. He obviously was waffling, because that's the very problem that's caused starter batteries to fail after as little as 3 months on these cars.

Hope the pic. uploads ok.

Leedsman.

Can't upload a picture, no browse facility, just something about URLs.

 

Leedsman.......

- informative post Leedsman
- good work
- I've only got 1Watters at 33KO and no connector blocks left

BTW nice reliable meter I've got the 177 of the same - but only because it was given to me free of charge

 

Hopefully this will show the picture.

Leedsman.

 

Quintq -- I got my Fluke for nix too -- it seems to have an auto-off feature which I just discovered recently. I used to use it as a "master" meter to calibrate all the engineer's digital meters at my last firm, a div. of ADT. So the master was calibrated once a year by a standards house. It was never out of calibration BTW. Damn good meter. But it cost £180 ATT. Believe it or not, I still have an AVO 8!

Note:-- If you want to check your own meter easily, a NEW 1.5volt zinc--carbon cell is dead-on 1.5volt., such as an AA 'battery'. But not a nickel-cadmium of course.
Common 5volt and 12volt regulators are good too, esp. the 5volt ones for TTL logic.

Leedsman.

 

- beautiful kit, of a day, but of an unbelievably high standard, yes for my sins I'm part of the 'bakerlite' generation
- between Jags & AVO's we had experiences younger people can only ever dream about
- the Fluke stays on the bench, this little alphaTEK one has served me well and has been bouncing around in the back of the cars for years

 

@ QinteQ
I have ordered the led's in the link you provided. I will let know if it's good and hopefully photo it before and after.
Does your led's fade out after locking your car and is it dimmable via the dashboard dimmer (like in original) ? Is it really 70 W original and like 10 W with led's ?

@ Leedsman
Thanks for your threads about batteries and car electricity. Some questions :
Do you recommend AGM batteries ? My english isn't advanced so I didn't understand the recommendations or preferred, do you recommend doing the resistor trick no matter which battery it is (wet,dry,agm etc) because of bad voltage of generator/alternator ?
Above 14 V is good or ?

Sorry for my questions and i haven't got any car yet.
I'm about to buy my sister's Chrysler Grand Voyager 2,5 CRD manual transmission 2002 year.

 

The 42mm CANBUS error free festoon lights I bought were SMD / LED. 70W was the total of the old festoons and the two map lights, the new SMD's gave more light per unit and reduced the total draw from the battery / alternator down to 10W. Yes the dimmers work just the same.

The 5050 SMD's I used were but they work ok! I needed 8 but bought 12 @ £1.90 each at the time. The two 501 W5W 8SMD LED for the map-lights were SMD / LED and I had to 'fettle' by soldering bits of wire direct to the old 'wedge' bulb holder. Mines a 2005, you should check that yours are 42mm festoon, ditto the T10 bulb holders in the overhead.



Best of luck!

 

Thanks for your answer QinteQ.
I will post the results and check out the fittings.

 

Answer to Jgb's question:--

"If a thing works all right, why change it"? An old bit of german philosophy.
"If a thing ain't broke, don't fix it: An old bit of american philosophy.
If your intended vehicle's 'electricity' system works ok, leave it alone. Only get working when you have to.

Leedsman.
p.s. A final observation -- if your vehicle is automatic, it cannot be started with a push or a bump-start. So if your battery won't crank it, you're stuffed. Of course you won't have have this problem, and it will a little lighter on fuel too.

 

Hi Leedsman
I'm from the GNU/Linux world and our philosophy is
" If it ain't broken, don't fix it " and " KISS - Keep it simple, stupid "

so you are right, but I was worried if undercharging a new battery I was looking at.