Originally posted by Skippman
Alright, since one day I hope to have all this electronics stuff installed in my ride I'm also going to need a larger alternator. Has anyone here installed dual batteries and a split charging alternator? I was wondering if I do the air-box to cone air filter change if I could mount another battery tray under the hood. I mean, look at all the stuff I'm going to be running.
HAM Radio
CB Radio
200x4 Amp
200x2 Amp
Invertor
AMD K6/2 500 Computer
4 Hella Black Magic lights
Alpine 510 Doulby Digital Decoder
And thats just the stuff that comes to mind. Do you guys think 200 amps is enough?
Wuss... LOL. a 200 amp altenator should have no problem handling that, as long as you have a good battery and don't have all those thinks on at the same time... do you have the wattage levels of all those items? Simply add em up, divide by 12, and your good to go. For example, here's my list.
4 sets (8 lights) of PIAA 80 XT's at 120 watts each = 960 watts
1 set of PIAA 520s at 85 watts each = 170 watts
1 set of PIAA 1500s at 85 watts each = 170 watts
1 set of PIAA 80 rallys at 135 watts each = 270 watts
Warn winch, 4800 watts at full draw
speaker amplifier, 100x4 = 400 watts
pre-amped subwoofer, 150 watts
total of those aftermarket things at 6920 watts, approximately 576 amps. I have a 130 amp altenator and a 800 amp battery (working on getting my optima sponsorship completed so I can add another battery [a yellow top] to help balance the load). if I'm not using my winch, its instantly down to 176 amps. Assuming I'll never be using my winch while I have all my PIAA"s on, which cranking the stereo, I don't anticipate any problems. If however I tried to run all these things at once, I have no doubt that things would start getting damaged... even going to a 200-amp altenator wouldn't help all that much. I think adding a second altenator would be a great idea, but where the heck could you mount it?