Having Charging Problems.....
 

OK I was out saturday night prowling the streets with the bottle heater on........:devil2: I hadnt really been out at night racing lately....... Well I stopped at a red light and decided to arm the system. I had the headlights on, A/C, bottle heater, main nitrous switch armed, all my electronics were on, and I was blastin the radio. As soon as I flipped the switch the radio cut off then the dash light cut off!!! I turned the n20 off and then everything came back on. I did it again and I noticed that the battery guage was showing NO POWER! I revved the car a little and everything started to come back on. Means my alternator wasnt putting out when I had all my stuff on at idle...... I took it down the road and everything was fine. I turned the system on and it all worked fine. I guess since the engine was running then it was charging better.

My question is, what can I do to help charging while at idle except for taking the pullies off. Do you guys think my alternator is going bad? I have been blowing a few fuses lately....Its all hooked up correctly I know that. Could I add a relay to everything to help it out? Would a relay draw less power? I have 2 relays on it already but not one for the rpm activated switches or the bottle heater.......

Get a higher capacity alternator.

Yeah a higher capacity alternator is about the only thing you can do. stereos, botle heaters, lights...all that stuff adds up in the current department and these stock alternators just can't keep up.

Might of had an arc/short in your nitrous wiring somewhere, or you may be feeling the negative effects of underdrive pullies.

alternator should be fine... i have pullies and im reading a higher voltage than stock and i have a mach 1000 and neons - my hids are low watt tho

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dont be silly that doesnt make sense.

Makes perfect sense. He turned on his nitrous and when he did that, he experienced electrical problems. I used to be into car audio and 12v electronics, and its very possible.

Nitrous doesnt take that much power easpecially when armed the power wouldnt even make much of a change untill the WOT was triggered...theres 2 circuits, the arming of system which just allows the power up to the WOT switch...and the heater doesnt use much power at all

Its not the current draw thats the problem from what It sounds like. Im sure nitrous systems cant draw much more than 10 to 15 amps of power. Possibly a loose ground or loose wire somewhere else, or mabye two wires touched from the nitrous.

Then again it may have nothing to do with the nitrous system activating that caused his problem. Could be just a coincidence that it was turned on at the same time. Im just stating a possibility for him to pinpoint his problem...

A short to ground in the bottle heater somewhere is quite possible and will cause issues like this. Once the short to ground has occurred, it doesn't matter how much the heater draws. It all depends on how much resistance there is from the hot wire that's grounded to the ground itself. Ohm's law proves this. I(Current) = V(VDC)/R(Resistance) plug in 12 volts and .5 Ohms resistance. That's 24 Amps of current, at 12 Volts DC. now to figure out how much power that ground is causing, just multiply the 12VDC by the 24 Amps, that's 288 Watts of power being drawn through that ground. Hell even if the circuit has a 20 Amp fuse, just increase the resistance to .6 Ohms and there's 20 amps, that fuse won't blow.

lol i was joking about the under drive pulleys you dirty pirate hooker.

Pullies seem logical to me except for one detail. (I've heard so many charging issues that trace back to pullies but only at idle. Off idle it's not a problem.)

the detail...With a stereo blasting and a bottle heater and nitrous system armed you're still not drawing much extra current. The heater won't take more than a token amount until it activates and heats up, and the nitrous solenoids take less juice to operate than you get from a 9volt battery (I tested my wiring layouts for my early nitrous system with a 9volt).

My headlights and panel lights dim when my bass tube punches really hard sometimes and I don't even have UDP's.

The ground issue reads right to me. I'd check your wires for abrasions.

I fixed the problem. Turns out I had some bare wire that wasnt wrapped up coming off a few of the relay pins under the hood. The guy at Cartronics told me that its "leaking" some current in those spots. He said that if all the wires are not insulated properly then it will leak some current out, Thus causing the electronics to draw more power from the car so they can operate.

I cleaned up the wires and added a third relay to power the TPS switch. The TPS switch sends that power to the other 2 relays that operate the solenoids and the other switches. So now I have 3 relays, a tps switch, 1 window switch, 1 RPM activated switch, a fuel switch, a Tach Driver,Shift Light, Bottle Heater, and the 2 solenoids. There a bunch of wires to connect everything together so its kinda easy to mess up somewhere especially when all the wires are the same color. LOL.

But I went out and turned everything on (A/C, radio, and all the electronics) and the voltage meter stayed showing normal while the car was at idle. Thanks Guys!:clap: