[albertr]

Had a few spare minutes to work on a van tonight. I posted earlier that 220A Valeo alternator gets excited on AXK idle RPMs. And it does... when engine is cold and starting RPMs go into 800-850 range. Here's not so good news - when engine is hot and idle RPMs are not crossing 600-650 range, Valeo alternator doesn't get excited. I sorta suspected that it might need a bit higher RPMs, but wait - here's good news - when you step on a gas pedal to bring RPMs up to 800-850 range it gets excited and it **STAYS** excited until engine is shut off.

I don't mind to help it to get excited when starting hot engine, but... here's not so good news - I lost "LOW BATTERY VOLTAGE" indication on the dashboard. So I have no clue whether it's excited or not unless I measure it's voltage output, which is not practical in the field.

I'm pretty sure that I'm using the correct terminal for exciter wire (Valeo alternator has two terminals on it;s connector, but only one - the same as on Bosch unit - produced output voltage). Measuring it;s output shows that it';s around 11V when it's **NOT** excited and around 13V when it is. I ran additional positive and negative 2AWG wires directly from alternator to the battery, so when alternator delivers 14.3V to battery, it reads around 13V on exciter wire, so there's voltage drop. I know that EuroVan is using LED in the dashboard for low battery indicator light. Maybe it doesn't have enough resistance? I can try to put additional passive load in series to this LED to increase voltage drop if it can help it... but I'm curious what voltage reading in on exciter wire with Bosch alternator? I guess it might be different enough so indicator LED works with Bosch unit... Any ideas?

-albertr 

[albertr]

UPDATE: Very happy with 220A Valeo alternator after being using it for a few days now. Valeo alternator can self-excite itself, so no need to use external exciter circuit. I lost "Low Battery" light in the dashboard (it stays off all the time), but that stimulated me to build a digital voltmeter, so now I have very accurate voltage reading in my dashboard (it turned out that microcontroller I picked up for this project has a better ADC than my Fluke meter).

Anyways, I still need to do a full load test to find out the true limits of this alternator, but I ran a quick test and was able  to draw 30A DC for my battery charger when A/C is on and headlights are on... and on engine idle RPMs ... and when it's very hot and voltage still stays around 13.6- 13.8V! That looks very promising.

-albertr

[pixelcodex]

I recently got an 03 Weekender with a bad alternator, and took it to a shop to replace before reading this thread. They added a 90A one (as per the recommended specs according to the mechanic). Well, I have had issues with it not charging enough even the starting battery with load at idle. I took it back to the shop to see if I could get them to upgrade at a reasonable price, but the price for the 120A bump was I think 260 more. I have been wanting to get a 220A one and found one off of a 2017 V6 at a decent price (at this point I am not positive whether it will fit) but the mechanic got me thinking of something else: when he mentioned the only possible upgrade was the 120A he cited among other things the wires running to the battery. I know you mentioned swapping the pulley, but would I need to upgrade them as well is I go with a 220A?

[albertr]

Wow, sorry I missed your question, since I haven't visited the forums in the last couple of years...

I did "upgrade" the wiring to 24AWG wire between the alternator and the battery and between the alternator and my inverter. I've replaced the positive wire and ran an extra negative wire.

Overall, I'm very happy with my Valeo 220A alternator - while driving, I can run fridge, laptop charger and charge my house batteries all at the same time.

-albertr