Gary Lewis Posted April 17 Author Share Posted April 17 Neither does Darth, he has a 200 amp fuse between the alternator and battery and has the 1996 instruments with the oil pressure gauge made functional and a volt meter. Yep. Big Blue has a 150A fuse and a voltmeter in place of the ammeter. Some day I may put a larger alternator in and all I'll have to do is to replace the fuse. By the way, as part of this test I plan to use the new hand throttle to map out the current output of the 130A 3G alternator vs engine RPM. I'd like to know that so when I'm winching, which I've done plenty of times, I'll know how far to rev the engine up to get max output. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ArdWrknTrk Posted April 18 Share Posted April 18 Ok thanks. I glossed over "carbon pile battery tester" but had no idea that it was actually a "load tester" hence the "load". Looks like I need to learn a "load" more One thing to keep in mind is if you have soldered connections on the shunt, the solder to metal interface will actually degrade before the metal itself as it is subject to electromigration forces. Solder also melts around 200C, intermetallics (Copper-tin intermetallics mainly) grow with heat aging and Joule heating, all of these will cause the solder to degrade faster that way.... we are talking probably a long-term reliability issue, which I don't think is part of your tests here. That is why on some of the high amp connections, crimping is actually preferred as it is a "thermocompression-like" metal-metal bond without any electromigration issues or joule heating effects. There are no solder connections in a harness. All splices are pressure welded (copper on copper). 💡 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
viven44 Posted April 18 Share Posted April 18 There are no solder connections in a harness. All splices are pressure welded (copper on copper). 💡 Thats a good point. I learned a lot of best practices from reading the painless manual on how factory connections work. I only solder the connections that I know are low amperage and the ones that I know need to be taken apart most likely. When I do crimp, I use the "marine grade" ones that come with the built-in adhesive that make the connection completely waterproof. I love these as they are so intact once the connection is made and in fact impossible to undo. Anything in the engine bay definitely gets this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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