Effects of amplifier voltage fluctuations?

[338_MtRushmore]

Just to be fair, there are drag racing batteries that come in various voltages of 14v to 18v for powering ignition systems. But I wouldn't use one in a street car.

I'm not sure that is fair or relevant, but you are correct. There are also voltage regulators that could charge those batteries at 16 or 20 volts if a dragster wanted to waste the HP on it.

 

[338_MtRushmore]

I tried, next

I figured out that half my problem is rf screwing up my meters. I hooked a pretty expensive meter to the alternator and propped it up on the wiper blade. It would idle at 14.5 or so, and read 19 or 20 volts under load. Only dropped a quarter volt or so into a dummy load. I still haven't figured out how to measure voltage at the amp. I recorded 10 seconds at the amp and the peak was 35v, and the minimum was -0.35v. Maybe some chokes on the test leads?

My extra 1/0 cable arrived today so I can make some more jumpers. My truck charges the passenger battery, but draws from the drivers battery. The positive jumper is probably only #1 and nearly 20 years old so I will probably add another cable to each side of the driver's battery, and maybe that will keep better voltage to the truck itself.

Mechman did confirm that 14.2v is typical for my truck when heat soaked.

 

[Rodeobum]

It's a 2005 dodge ram diesel, so it can't be too new and fancy I wouldn't think. I would think that a slipping belt would be pretty apparent under a long full load, but maybe the instantaneous demand could be causing slippage?

My amp clamp doesn't show much over 100 amp draw, so it isn't even that big of a load considering the factory alternator is 160 amp.

I will add my missing ground wire and do some more testing tomorrow.

Make sure you haven’t got a weak battery cause ig sounds like that could be the case only notice it when the radio keys down noghing else would cause you to notice one battery is weak