Alternators Are Not Battery Chargers

0:02 – [Music]
0:07 – So what I wanted to show you today was the misunderstanding that there is out there that alternators are battery chargers
0:16 – This particular stator and rectifier assembly is out of one of our power stroke alternators, so you can see how badly this thing is violated, I mean, it’s a wonder it didn’t catch on fire
0:26 – These windings are just totally burned up
0:30 – This is what it should look like right here, and when it has nearly caught on fire is this, now how that happens is alternators are designed to maintain your battery and run the electrical system, but when people have lower dead batteries and jump start the vehicle, and then take off driving, it’s trying to build up that battery with all the power that it can generate besides run your vehicle
0:56 – And this is the result of that, and you know I just don’t recommend that, that is just so hard on the electrical system
1:04 – This chart here is one of the things on our website that shows how dead batteries are, and what range they are when they are dead
1:15 – The misunderstanding people also have, well the engine starts, it’s charged well, that doesn’t mean anything, the batteries are so powerful today they can still start the vehicle but still need a a charge
1:25 – As you can see here, this says open circuit voltage, that means the battery is just sitting all by itself, not hooked to anything
1:33 – So let me explain about the rates a little bit, here we’re starting out with 11.85 volts, but as you can see on this chart, the voltage comes up, and when it gets all the way down here, when it’s at 12.35, at 6 to 700 amp, cranking amp, it still takes three and a half hours to charge it on a 5 amp battery charger
1:54 – People think that the battery is charged when it’s got 12 volts, that’s not the case, to give an example of that, I want to show you
2:02 – Here’s a 10 amp battery charger, just a manual battery charger, and it will charge up a battery, and that would be this row, because it’s a 10 amp capability
2:12 – Now this one here, it only mentions that it’s a 4 amp, but I think this one would fall into the first category over here, because it’s not as powerful, but that’s how long it would take
2:24 – So getting back to our point here, this alternator was only a month old, well at some point this vehicle had totally stone dead batteries, maybe more than once, and he just kept going until this thing almost turned into a fireball
2:38 – I just cannot stress enough that these are not battery chargers, they are battery maintainers and they are built to run the electrical system in the vehicle
2:47 – Now I do want to say that our battery charger boosting charger cart has got a 35 amp alternator that is only dedicated to charging batteries, it’s not running any electrical system and it’s only 35 amps, so it has a good way to cool and charge your batteries that way
3:04 – If you have any questions about this, just reach out to us and get in touch with us, you can even give us an old-fashioned phone call
3:11 – This item here, this sheet is going to be available, is available on our website, you can print it off and just do some comparison with your vehicles and see what kind of voltage is in the batteries, especially when they set for a long time
3:24 – [Music]