?????'s about running no alternator

[mustninty]

So I read on here about buying a deep cycle battery and ditching the alternator. What experiences have people on here had with this? On a side note I drive a 92 civic HB and I drive 150 miles roundtrip everyday, 5 days a week for work. I'm not using A/C but I am using the radio and I get off of work at 11 at night, so i would be using my lights on the way home.

[AMX]

I have not had experience myself with not using an alternator, however, in my opinion, I would believe that your battery would go dead before you got home.

[EH3]

driving at night with lights on and no alternator = VERY bad idea

the alternator requires very little effort to spin. far less than a power steering pump, A/C or even the water pump.

[baddog671]

Originally Posted by EH3

the alternator requires very little effort to spin. far less than a power steering pump, A/C or even the water pump.

Convert to manual steering, ditch the AC, and install an electric water pump

[DRW]

If you want to make it work for your car and driving conditions, I'd recomend some LED running lights to reduce electrical consumption, install a switch for the alternator so you can turn it on when the battery needs some charging, and a voltmeter so you can keep an eye on batt volts. Then install a battery charger under the hood and park next to an electrical outlet so you can plug in your car when you park. If you can get all of that arranged, you might save some gas. Darin at MetroMPG.com saw 10% improvement in FE when he removed the alternator, but the savings were offset by the cost of running a batterycharger. It was still a gain.

[theholycow]

There's a user here who runs no alternator and it seems to be working well for him. Here's what I had to say about the idea in another post:

Originally Posted by 1cheap1

I think i saw a guy on the net who had taken out the generator and ran all electrical off a deep cycle extra battery, then charge the battery at night. It add FE to his car. Of course he is an electrical engineer.

He's right here on this forum...his name is rgathright and he did it on a Jeep Wrangler. Here's where he first described it:
http://www.gassavers.org/showthread.php?t=7140

Originally Posted by rgathright

Hi, just wanted to to drop a line.

I am currently driving a 2005 Jeep TJ with an onboard custom built switching (solid state) battery charger, Group 24 Gel, no alternator and electric fan. My best MPG so far is 17.1MPG but that was before I removed the mechanical engine fan.

Check my switching power supply out, I have lots of pictures and discussion on MySpace. http://www.myspace.com/reubengathright

I've been considering a more mild form of that, where I don't remove the alternator but just disconnect it, and I don't have to invest in an expensive battery but I can just use my existing starter battery and maybe a deep cycle battery I have for my boat too.

That thread did include this response to my post:

Originally Posted by RoadWarrior

You could try to do a kind of "mild hybrid" thing with the alternator, and have a relay keep the field coils disconnected while the throttle is open. As soon as you lift off the gas, it cuts the field coils back in again. Would probably get you a flat battery on long highway hauls though, so rigging a manual bypass would be wise.

However, many ECUs modulate the field current according to state of battery charge, electrical load or other factors... so as soon as you're fully charged up and not using many electrics, the alternator should be in minimal drag mode. This is why I doubt the overall FE potential of underdrive pulleys on vehicles that have this, it just prolongs the charge time.

[GasSavers_Ryland]

if you look at This Page you will find a list of all of the electrical loads that I tested with an amp meter on my 1992 civic vx, so figure out what all you are going to have running on your car while you drive, how long they are going to be running for then find a battery that has at least twice that capacity so you don't drain it down past 50% full (shortens the life of the battery a great deal), you will then be able to figure out if this is practical for you to do.

[8307c4]

It all depends...
A fully charged lead-acid battery during the daytime running nothing but the engine... No turn signals, no brake lights, no fan no radio no lights no wipers no washer no nothing...
Can go around 400 miles on a charge.
That's assuming the battery is in good shape, and the correct one for the car.
It helps further if the battery is a size bigger than the car needs.
I usually run 1,000 cca's in all of mine, but not for this reason

But you take a risk, that and once the voltage drops a little your mpg suffers because the battery is no longer sending as much juice to the ignition coil(s), hence your spark plugs deliver a weaker spark.

And on a rainy night, with headlights and wipers and at least some fan?
You might make it 200 miles, maybe not... Maybe 100, maybe 50...

It all depends.

It would be my opinion that it would be better for that kind of money to see about installing some high performance 10mm spark plug wires.

[GasSavers_RoadWarrior]

Originally Posted by 8307c4

And on a rainy night, with headlights and wipers and at least some fan?
You might make it 200 miles, maybe not... Maybe 100, maybe 50...

About 30 miles is about it... and that was with the assistance of an "emergency" alternator belt, which didn't work worth crap... rain wouldn't let up, had to have the wipers and blower on full... just hovering above freezing... soaked to the skin from standing out in it trying to rig the emergency belt... crawled it about an hour on the back roads... before it started bogging really bad at low speed... AND I was turning the headlamps off every chance I got, just running sidelights until I saw another vehicle, then popping them on lowbeam again... so I parked outside a small town garage for the night... coldest damn night ever... so I kinda have this habit of regarding people willing and eager to do away with their alternator as severely disturbed

2nd instance different vehicle, this time with the alternator dying, did 1 1/2 hour of highway travel in good weather before it stalled out and wouldn't go, had DRLs and nothing else running. Had cellphone, had CAA, got towed, phew.

IMO, trying to run off a regular car battery with no alternator or provision for charging, is like getting all the disadvantages of an electric car, while keeping all the gasoline bills of of an IC car... by the time you're carrying the 4 deep cycle batteries that I would consider a decent reserve source with no charging system, you probably aren't saving any gas.

Unhook the field coils, use an electric clutch if you like, but as soon as you feel the thing stumble you can hook it back up and rev the motor at 2500 for a minute or two, and not have to sleep a night in the back seat with wet clothes and only a mars bar for supper in 1-2C temps.

[theholycow]

I imagine the range would be even shorter on a modern small car with electric power steering and a million electrical features. Still, rgathright seems to be successful, though it sounds like he probably invested more money in it than he would save. However, he bought a really expensive battery and such.

I just wonder how well I would do in my VW on my 80 mile round trip commute. Obviously I would charge it every night, and if the voltage got too low while drivig I could always abort for that day and plug the alternator back in (or switch it back on or whatever). rgathright is using a voltage regulator which would mean you could drain the battery more; but you'd want an expensive proper deep cycle battery for that...