toysareforboys

Mechman and DC Power, nope

I've disabled the voltage check and alternator check in the ECU with hp tuner flash but it doesn't have anything that can adjust the voltage.

My car gets crap voltage. Like 14.2 when cold then when it warms up it sits around 13.2v. I'd really like to get 15.5v cold and 15v warm. I don't care if the current output is less, I have monster cap banks that will hold the voltage power

So, any way to "hotwire" the stock alternator into putting out more voltage or even better, does any one make a high current replacement alternator for the LSJ?!?!

-Jamie M.

mrbelvedere

iTrader: (3)

custom only is the only way i know of

toysareforboys

Custom alternator? Do you know where I can get one??

-Jamie M.

Tdubbs

You can try finding a local rebuilder. They may be able to rebuild your stock one to put out more voltage/more amps. Most of them do quality work too, because they don't want you coming back in 2 weeks to warranty something. When I had my Focus SVT there was a place about 20 minutes from my house that rebuilt mine, granted it was just a stock rebuild, but it only cost me $80 vs a reman at $230.

toysareforboys

Sweet! I'll call around.

I found a hack to boost the voltage, I'm getting it on monday. I'll post up if it works.

-Jamie M.

toysareforboys

Ok, I tried everything to boost the voltage today

Here's info on the super fancy new DIGITALLY controlled alternator http://ecuflashking.com/07cobaltSS_S...ing_system.pdf

It uses digital data to control the alternator, not reference voltage like 99% of other alternators.

That PDF says the BCM controls the alternator "by sensing the voltage on IGNITION 1 circuit as well as the positive battery line"

fml

I got some monster zener diodes and I tested them in the car. Running power through them would drop the voltage by 0.6 volts. I installed one in place of the 20amp IP IGN fuse under the hood and it made no difference in idle voltage. I also installed one in place of the 10amp HVAC/IP IGN fuse on the interior fuse block, no difference. I even replaced the 15amp PCM/ECM fuse with a diode but it made my car sound like it had a noisy diesel engine so I just turned it right off and put the fuse back.

So, any super crazy electrical guru's with a wiring diagram want to give me any pointers on where I can install the diode(s) so that the BCM thinks the voltage is too low and commands the alternator to boost it?

-Jamie M.

calo247

There is so much wrong with this thread that i am not going to provide a solution in fear of you doing more damage than good. but i will help you a little bit

lets start of with why in the world would you want to raise the voltage of the alternator anyway? any electronic component in the car will have some sort of VRM in it anyway that will nullify any change you make if it doesn't just fry it right away.

second, i don't think you understand what voltage is, voltage is just the potential difference across two points its not the amount of energy that is being made or used, that is what current is. so when is says the BCM is sensing the voltage it mean it sensing the drop across the +VE and the ignition circuit, this is probably just used to create a reference voltage so that the duty cycle can be calculated and therefore allow the computer to know how hard the alternator is working to determine what state it is in

third, stop what you are doing with the zener diodes, again i do not think you know what they are. a zener diodes voltage is very closely related to the current applied to it, so when you are getting a 0.6 -V across it your simply finding out part of the zener effect curve. as well a zener diode simply put will only allow current to travel in both directions when the voltage is above the "knee voltage" and only one direction when the voltage is below the breakdown point. so just throwing it in random spot in place of a fuse is a very bad idea. the fuses are there for a reason and its not to control the voltage.

and finally do not worry about your large cap banks, all they are doing is increasing the load on your alternator for no real purpose as i highly doubt that you have a capacitor bank with a low enough ESR to really have any sort of effect other than just making your battery minutely bigger.

again, this is not a thorough explanation, just pointing out a few glaring facts

toysareforboys

I appreciate any help I can get

Any system in the car is designed to take up to at least 14.4v. That's all I want to run it at, 14.4v, all the time. Not 13.2, not 12.8, 14.4! If I can get it up to 15.5v or 16v then I'll run a stepdown regulator so that all the cars electronics and devices only see 14v while my amplifiers get 15.5/16v.

My amplifiers put out more power at higher voltage, my caps store more energy at higher voltage, and charging my cars AGM batteries to more than 20% of their capacity should help out with the energy available too

I know the current only flows one way, lol. People in car audio have used zener diodes for 15 years to boost the alternator output voltage, usually by replacing the "ALT-S" fuse with one (or two in series for 15.6v alternator output).

For no real purpose? When my alternator would normally be sitting there doing nothing (between the bass bumps) the caps are sucking as much power from it as they can to perfectly store it for WHEN IT IS ACTUALLY NEEDED! I was getting voltage drops BELOW 9 volts (which is where my amps go into protect) before I installed the caps, now I couldn't get it to go below 12 volts (well now 11.2 volts after I increased the load on my amplifiers a few days ago).


These are massive, instantaneous discharge supercaps. They store a crazy amount of energy, and discharge it at up to 2000 amps The ones I'm running currently have an ESR of less than 0.29mΩ

Their full spec sheet: http://ecuflashking.com/07cobaltSS_SC/3000f.pdf

I think you will find their specifications to be some of the best in the industry.

Thank you for the info, even if we disagree. 13.2 volts is not enough for my car. I just want it back to 14.4 where it's "supposed" to be. Caps store more energy, amplifiers put out more power, AGM batteries charge up to where they're supposed to be, etc.

-Jamie M.

calo247

1. okay understandable i misunderstood, thought you wanted some crazy voltage boost.

2. yes an amp will work better at correct voltage, again thought you wanted some crazy boost. but the voltage has no effect capacitors ability to store energy, it is rated at a certain capacitance within a given tolerance and that is it. good choice with the AGM batteries by the way.

3. i never said the current through a zener diode only flowed one way, it can be one way or both, depending on the breakdown voltage. yes you can use them to trick the alternator on a conventional system because your changing its voltage reference, but on the cobalt the reference is made of multiple components and the computer interprets the different variables to make a decision on what phase the alternator should be in.

4. see next note

5. i find the data sheet quite funny and to be a complete joke
- first of all there is no sort of ISO or similar certification so right off the bat i know all the numbers could just be changed to whatever, there is also a ton of spelling errors, something that would never happen on a proper audited data sheet.
- the data sheet says nothing about the type of capacitor it is, in terms of materials and such (big red flag).
- the data sheet rates the cap at a whopping 2.7 volts, how this can run safety on a car where with the 14.4 volts you want i have no idea, sounds like a disaster waiting to happen.
- the ESR rating while okay is not great for a 3000f cap, as well they do not specify at what frequency, ripple voltage, etc. the measurement was taken at so again could be a totally non realistic scenario.
- the tolerances are all messed up, nobody has just positive tolerances. and there are no tolerances stated on things where they should be stated.
- there is no mention of internal resistance?!
- the leakage current is horrible
- REALLY low max operating temp, a classic example of a low quality cap
- there is a warning not to use it under frequent charge and discharge state, exactly what will be happening in a car

6. not a problem, glad be can have a civilized debate

toysareforboys

But if I charge up my caps to 1v do they not hold less energy than if I charged them up to 2.5v? My real world testing says they have WAY more energy at the higher voltage.

So you don't know where I can trick ALL the components? I'll run the entire BCM at 0.6 volts less if I have to

Supercaps for some reason are always 2.7 volts rated (2.85v surge). For "normal" car audio or complete vehicle battery replacement applications you run six of them in series so you end up with 500 farads at rated 16.2v or 17.1v surge.

Mine:

LICK FOR HIGH RES!

Purchased for $240 shipped from: Free shipping 16V 500F 2.7V 3000F Auto rectifier-in Other Electronic Components from Electronic Components & Supplies on Aliexpress.com | Alibaba Group

I had to upgrade the link plates because I melted the little copper straps that it came assembled with.

I task you with finding ANY supercap that has a lower ESR rating, it doesn't exist. And as far as measuring ESR or the ESR specification, supercaps are a bit different. The ESR is a DC ESR, so no frequency or ripple.

There are no supercaps that have a higher operating temperature. These operate in the trunk of my car, and even after an extended thrashing of my stereo system, they weren't even warm to the touch, so I doubt they'll ever see even close to 65c

I just asked them about this, and they said there is a mistake on the data sheet, it's 5mA, not 5A lol!

What they mean is to not use it for something that will continuously and constantly drain it to 0v and re-charge it back to X.Xv (as I'd imagine it would probably overheat). In my scenario I am both a) not using it close to it's maximum voltage (at 14.4v that's only 88% capacity) and b) I am putting it through VERY minor charge and discharge cycles from 88% charged down to 68% then back up to 88%, etc. That's using 14.4v (which I'm never at) and down to 11v (which I rarely if ever drop to). So, the caps are barely doing any work at all, as far as their duty cycle is concerned.

Me too

-Jamie M.

calo247

1. 90% of capacitors (not some exotic caps) the voltage has no effect on the capacitance, although as you increase the voltage your charge per volt reduces, make sense?

2. i will do some looking around

3. fair enough, you can add caps in series to increase the voltage rating, but i would only do this with bleeder resistors across each cap to ensure the 1/2 node is exactly half the applied voltage.

4. maxwell makes a 3400f at 0.22mOhm and eaton makes a 3000f at 0.23mOhm

5. fair enough 65* is plenty for a car

6. okay good, thats much better

7. 10% or 100% change is still almost the same, its the rapid cycling that caps hate, i can dig up my old textbook for the reasoning that i now forget but im lazy and dont want to go find it, hope you dont mind lol

toysareforboys

The caps came with a balancing board that connects to all six caps to monitor their voltage and bleed where necessary. See the threaded holes in the link plates? That's where the balancing wires screw into.

I didn't have a good way to mount it (it's a bare circuit board) and with my caps not being fused I was super worried it'd touch stuff it wasn't supposed to, so I monitored each cap voltage carefully (using six x.00v displays). The ONLY time I ever noticed it get out of balance is if I had every accessory off in the car (headlights, heated seats, radio, etc.) and drove at a steady speed for a long amount of time (like 45 mins or more), than a few of the caps were +0.1v or -0.1v (more like .02v or so off, but I doubt the exact accuracy of my chinese volt meters). Causing a current draw like the headlights, heated seats, defog, or when starting the car (if I had turned it off) automatically put all of the caps in perfect balance. Is it more important to keep them balanced as they age, in case they age differently?? I asked the manufacturer about running without the balance board and they said as long as the caps don't sit at the same voltage for long periods of time or if I'm not running them over 15.6 volts then I didn't need the balance boards.

Wow, that Maxwell 3400f is SUPER nice, 2.85v with 3.0v surge! AMAZING! Price is not absurd either.. that'd give me 566.667 farads 17.1v with 18v surge. NICE! Might use those for my next cap bank add-on then eventually sell my 16.2v caps so that when I get a second alternator (lol) and run a secondary electrical system with 14v batteries at 16v then I won't be so close to the limit as I would be with my existing caps That eaton cap is super nice too, overpriced, but nice.

People have used caps in car audio for more years than I've been alive and I've never heard of one failure, so they must be able to take this "abuse". When they talk about "quickly" discharging and recharging, they are talking in Hz, how many times per second. With the music I listen to I doubt it discharges and recharges more than once per 3 seconds

-Jamie M.

calo247

1. i see, should have mentioned that before haha, that is good then. yes it is important or the caps will age differently and their specs will degrade at different rates, causing an exponential cycle to occur possibly even causing some major performance issues

2. eaton make some really nice stuff, never tried a maxwell one though

3. caps dont outright fail unless your a complete moron with them, and i would hate to see one that big go. but they do degrade over time and use, some more than others. its the change of state that they dont like and without hooking up a scope to your car when you play music i have no idea how good or bad the problem is. It is dc power there is no frequency, only amplitude, you will always be at 0 Hz, just depends on the state of the cap. the current will always come from the path of least resistance, almost always your alternator, until it can no longer provide the power in which case the cap provides a buffer, im sure you know this. so to find out how many times the cap is changing states i would need to log it using a scope, this is one of the elements in what determines how fast it will degrade

toysareforboys

My friend is bringing over his scope to capture the alternator data lines (so he can program an arduino to tell the alternator to not be stupid). I'll get him to connect it to the cap while I bump some tunes and we'll log the data

-Jamie M.

calo247

thats actually a smart idea, i never thought of using an arduino.

cool, i would love to see the log, always wanted to try this.

toysareforboys

So, I got a monster custom alternator built, just got it today, but it's got a bit of pulley wobble. Something I should be worried about?


Let me know what you think.

-Jamie M.

calo247

ya that's a bit weird, not sure how confident i would be running it in my car. send the vid to manufacturer and maybe they could help ya out

Tdubbs

I'll agree with this. It's okay to have a little bit of wobble, but I would consider that excessive.

toysareforboys

Thanks for the advice guys! I sent them the vid, I'll let you know the reply

-Jamie M.

toysareforboys

So I finally made a vid of my car, was going to wait until the new alternator and good voltage, but with the bad news about the pulley wobble I figured I'd do one anyway.

Going to need to use a different/better camera, this one freaks out and reset at high volume

***TURN YOUR SPEAKERS/HEADPHONES WAY DOWN***


-Jamie M.

nutty21

iTrader: (1)

So much wrong. I just gotta go.

toysareforboys

Thanks for your input

-Jamie M.