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Alien in the Hood
The Charging System Diagnostic
By : Affnan
Car Electric has always been a mystery and subject of the
“Black Art” of the motoring world. We are at the mercy of car electrician on
what goes wrong and what to change. Electricity can’t be seen, so what goes
wrong will be a guessing game for many, and wrong troubleshooting may cost a lot
of money. Wrong and bad troubleshooting not only cause time consuming
rectification but can also cause road
break down and this will be even more costly.
The subject that I am touching in this article is the charging system of our car, it could be a Peugeot or it could be any car out there, all the same. Information and technique in this write up are gathered from various publication and some my experience in trouble shooting my other car the, Jumbo Jet. Nothing fancy and nothing new, I just digest it all and spit it out in a more palatable manner.
Get on with it.
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Tooling. What needed is just a multimeter, RM 30.00 multimeter
will do just fine, don’t need to get a Fluke for the job. An Ammeter, the type that measures current will also be handy, however this meter is more for the serious diy guy due to its requirement to be in series with the circuit to be tested. I am only using a voltmeter function of the multimeter. |
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Meter Connection As shown, the meter is connected to the battery
terminal, that’s all to it and most charging system diagnostic can be
done from here. Black lead to Negative (-ve) or Ground and Red leads
to the Positive(+ve) terminal, some test equipment can be hook up via the
cigarette lighter socket, this make diagnosis even easier. Select, the DC Voltage function on the meter and the appropriate voltage range, in this case I am using the 20V range since the voltage to be measure won’t be more then 15V. |
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Note about Battery and Alternator.
A fully charged battery can deliver 25 amperes for about
125 minutes, this is its reserve capacity. If your alternator fails this is how
long you can drive the car before it goes dead.
A good battery should be able to deliver about 430 ampere for about 30 seconds before the terminal voltave drop below 7.2 volt with the above reserve capacity.
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Alternator have voltage and ampere rating normally
stamp on a plate on its casing, 15V 60 Amp means the alternator can supply
60 amperes at 15 volt. Normally 10% or within 15 amp of the rated amperage
indicate a good alternator if the output is less then that, its an
indication of a failing alternator. In this article we are not going to check the amperage output since it is more challenging to do, instead we will diagnose the same situation with the voltage reading. |
| Before we start ensure the fan or accessory belt is within
the specified manufacturer tension recommendation. A loose belt can
severely affect our diagnosis and could also damage the voltage regulator
in the alternator if full loads are applied.
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The Battery Charge Indicator light. This light illuminate indicating that the battery is not charging, it’s that simple. If the light comes on faintly during night driving its also an indication of a problem in your car charging system, since at night we tend to switch on all loads in the car electrical system. With the ignition switch in accessories this single indicator will
light up to remind us that battery is being use, this is in my pug other
pug I don’t know. |
If this light is so fantastic so why do we bother do diagnose the charging system after all. The answer is, if this light illuminates then its already too late, your charging system is already gone. Preventive maintenance is the keyword here, get to the problem before it get you.