Car Alternator

airborne said:
for such a deeply discharged battery a 4amp charger maynot be enough to wake it up properly
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Earlier you said this:

airborne said:
only charge the battery at low current, because a battery so discharged will draw max current and create huge amounts of
Click to expand...

Charge at low power to prevent explosive gases but 4A may not be enough? What is low enough too charge and prevent gases?
 
That charger will set the current depending on what it can deliver and on how flat the battery is. I’m pretty sure it’s the same as the one I have and you can’t set the current on it. 4A isn’t too much, the alternator will charge it at a higher current. It’ll take 24 or more hours to charge the battery if it’s completely flat.
 
Trust|Nobody said:
Earlier you said this:



Charge at low power to prevent explosive gases but 4A may not be enough? What is low enough too charge and prevent gases?
Click to expand...

My apologies I gave that advice to err on the side of safety, you seem pretty clueless in terms of diy + vehicle repair and taking whatever charger your mate next door has and setting it to max current may set yourself up for a little explosion or acid leaking everywhere.

I'll restate the advice, which you must follow to the tee:
1 Get a high powered battery charger
2 Remove the battery from the vehicle and place in open well ventilated area
3 Remove the plugs on the battery's cells to ensure gas can escape
4 Connect the charger and leave it to do its work which may take quite some time, if the charger is powerful enough then overnight should be sufficient.

You can also drop the battery at a battery shop and ask them to charge it, that may cost you R50 or so and the inconvenience of dropping it off and collecting it.
 
airborne said:
My apologies I gave that advice to err on the side of safety, you seem pretty clueless in terms of diy + vehicle repair and taking whatever charger your mate next door has and setting it to max current may set yourself up for a little explosion or acid leaking everywhere.

I'll restate the advice, which you must follow to the tee:
1 Get a high powered battery charger
2 Remove the battery from the vehicle and place in open well ventilated area
3 Remove the plugs on the battery's cells to ensure gas can escape
4 Connect the charger and leave it to do its work which may take quite some time, if the charger is powerful enough then overnight should be sufficient.

You can also drop the battery at a battery shop and ask them to charge it, that may cost you R50 or so and the inconvenience of dropping it off and collecting it.
Click to expand...

That looks like a far better and a cheaper idea.
 
airborne said:
I'll restate the advice, which you must follow to the tee:
1 Get a high powered battery charger
2 Remove the battery from the vehicle and place in open well ventilated area
3 Remove the plugs on the battery's cells to ensure gas can escape
4 Connect the charger and leave it to do its work which may take quite some time, if the charger is powerful enough then overnight should be sufficient.
Click to expand...

Just be advised that a lot of batteries these days are sealed and you wont be able to remove the caps. If this is the case they have a valve to release gas build up so the advice to to it in an open environment holds true.

Reading the thread I cant help thinking that its not the alternators or batteries that are the problem but a dead short somewhere.
 
Freshy-ZN said:
Just be advised that a lot of batteries these days are sealed and you wont be able to remove the caps. If this is the case they have a valve to release gas build up so the advice to to it in an open environment holds true.

Reading the thread I cant help thinking that its not the alternators or batteries that are the problem but a dead short somewhere.
Click to expand...

I am thinking more of an open circuit than a short, a short would immediately take out fuses. A faulty earth most probably.
 
Freshy-ZN said:
Reading the thread I cant help thinking that its not the alternators or batteries that are the problem but a dead short somewhere.
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That's true, I totally forgot to mention something.
The discharge warning light was on since Monday.
Friday the car battery was completely dead.

On Thursday evening on my way home in the evening, the instrumentation and headlights began fading before my eyes. I knew the battery was getting closer to death. Suddenly out of know where the instrumentation and headlights shot up to full power. And the discharge warning light went off for the first time since it started on Monday. I thought yippee, the problem is gone.

I arrived home about 20 minutes later. I parked my car and switched it off. I wanted to see if the discharge warning light would come back on and it did! (After I switched the engine off and restarted it) Damn I thought, back to square one.

What I want to point out is that just suddenly while on the N1 the power shot up and the discharge warning light went out.
What could have caused that?
 
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thechamp said:
I am thinking more of an open circuit than a short, a short would immediately take out fuses. A faulty earth most probably.
Click to expand...

How can I find the faulty earth?
If you recall this all started right after I charged my cellphone in the car for the first time.
 
Freshy-ZN said:
Just be advised that a lot of batteries these days are sealed and you wont be able to remove the caps. If this is the case they have a valve to release gas build up so the advice to to it in an open environment holds true.

Reading the thread I cant help thinking that its not the alternators or batteries that are the problem but a dead short somewhere.
Click to expand...
Good point but those things don't vent enough for a very high current charge, you can normally pull the top sticker off the "sealed" batteries and the caps are underneath, in the process voiding the warranty..
 
I think its time to admit that this is a serious problem and let an auto electrician fault find. After 2 alternators and a battery at 3v theres nothing you can do
 
Trust|Nobody said:
That's true, I totally forgot to mention something.
The discharge warning light was on since Monday.
Friday the car battery was completely dead.

On Thursday evening on my way home in the evening, the instrumentation and headlights began fading before my eyes. I knew the battery was getting closer to death. Suddenly out of know where the instrumentation and headlights shot up to full power. And the discharge warning light went off for the first time since it started on Monday. I thought yippee, the problem is gone.

I arrived home about 20 minutes later. I parked my car and switched it off. I wanted to see if the discharge warning light would come back on and it did! (After I switched the engine off and restarted it) Damn I thought, back to square one.

What I want to point out is that just suddenly while on the N1 the power shot up and the discharge warning light went out.
What could have caused that?
Click to expand...

Something is lose and as mentioned check the earth and the live wires are fastened to clean connections.
 
Maybe the high rpm on the N1 allowed the alternator to provide enough current to charge the battery for a little while which is why the discharge light went off.

Dining headlights is a definite sign that the alternator isn't doing it's job correctly for whatever reason.
 
bromster said:
Maybe the high rpm on the N1 allowed the alternator to provide enough current to charge the battery for a little while which is why the discharge light went off.

Dining headlights is a definite sign that the alternator isn't doing it's job correctly for whatever reason.
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Once the battery is charged again, One way to improvise and test the alternator grounding is to just find an extra piece of thickish wire 2.5mm+ and connect your battery negative terminal to an earth grounding point on the alternator (perhaps where it mounts onto the engine.) This is basically a temporary earth wire just for testing. If this miraculously fixes the discharge light, this would point towards a faulty earth wire as mentioned before which you could then get fixed.
 
Trust|Nobody said:
How can I find the faulty earth?
If you recall this all started right after I charged my cellphone in the car for the first time.
Click to expand...

To be a good DIY auto electrician you need to start thinking like a proper auto electrician, you cell phone charging thing is distracting you. Earth points are all those cables bolted onto to metal surfaces, start with the ones on the body, unbolt and clean the surface with a sandpaper, it helps a lot when you have a multimeter to trace continuity.

If you manage to get a good battery and get the car started can't you manage to measure voltage directly at the alternator?
 
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Ok so Outsurance towed my car home last night.
We did this around midnight.

I called the auto electrician here and he said he has 26 cars with him and he can only take a look at my car tomorrow.

I'm going to try other elecrricians.
 
I'll post some pictures of the engine in a moment.
All I can see is two ground points that look ok to me.
 
Did you say you had a Corolla? A colleague's Corolla just blew a fuse when he connected a cellphone charger, the rest of the car still works though, he's having trouble believing that the charger is faulty as he used it this morning with no issues. Another odd coincidence.
 
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