After frying my old generator (long story), I patched together three generators to make a good solid one. I am not running a gauge and my Fluke took a dump, beside removing the battery cable (hard to get to) can I test the generator out put with a test light? Possibly on the BAT side of the regulator? (unhooked from the battery). Or is there any other old time'y way of checking to see if its charging? -Don
Yes, crudely...make up a test bulb that is same voltage as the car, 6 or 12. I use a socket that fits double filament tail/stop bulbs because of the plentiful supply of those with one filament out. Baseline by hookin to battery with car OFF, observe brightness. Next hook it to BAT terminal of regulator and good ground. If your idle speed is low stock type like 500 or so, gnerator should be out of business at that speed and light should look same as on battery with engine off. Rev engine a bit and when regulator reaches its cut-in voltage, the light should become noticeably brighter as generator bumps the system from 6 to 7+ or 12 to 14V... A crude and quick test: Run engine fast enough that gen should be charging, a bit more than idle, and remove battery cable. You'll know right now!
Ah contraire ! Ya just gota know when it is the right weapon in the toolbox to use,VOA's are not the right tool in some instances.
Used clumsily, a test light can only show go/nogo, electricty present or totally lacking. If you are sensitive to brightness, flickering, etc. you can diagnose a lot more, and in this case easily detect the difference between battery and generator voltage... In the case of a generator with mechanical voltage regulation, some modern VOM's won't even function because they try to follow the output of a system modulated by vibrating points and so can't figgerout the averaged output that is running the system!
Bruce awesome suggestion, I did what you said and it worked like a charm, exactly as stated. Granted its not a 100% as to what your putting out but if everything works like it should the brighter bulb indicates I am generating more juice than the battery currently has. Good enough for me. Thanks for the tip! -Don
Actually, you just need to turn on your headlights against the garage wall...they will make the same test for you!
DITTO! Run the car at a slow idle for a couple minutes with all lights on and let them pull a little charge out of the battery. Then pay attention to the lights on the wall and rev the car to about 1500-2000 RPM and the lights should noticeably get brighter if the generator/regulator are working
Another way would be to touch the rear alt. or gen. arm. bearing cover with a small pocket flathead screwdriver while the engine is idling.... If you feel slight magnetic pull with the screwdriver, that means it's working.... It's quick and easy!
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