What is alternator rate of charge???

[zensius]

Can anybody tell me the rate of charge with a stock alternator? Let's say a battery is dead. How long would it take (approximately) to fully charge a standard battery at idle? Thanks.

 

[metstalker]

i dont know about idle but thirty minutes of peppy driving would do the trick

 

[zensius]

I'm actually trying to figure out how long a solar panel would take to fully charge a battery. I can get different sized solar panels and I need to know what to expect.

 

[jssong]

i would think youd need alot of solar panesl to recharge the battery.. if you had yoru whole roof as a giant solar panel, it would get pretty expensive, and prob woudlnt be worth it in the long run.

 

[Opera House]

A standard battery is

about 70 amp hours. With losses in changing, figure about 100 amp hours of charging. So if your solar panel puts out 1 amp you need to leave it in the sun for 100 hours. I had a fully dead battery (1V) last year and 1 1/2 hours on a 6A charger was enough to start it. A 30 minute drive home had the alternator cooking. It still took another 14 hours on a charger to get it up to full charge.

 

[zensius]

So a 50 amp panel would take two hours? Sounds good. Thanks for the help.