Four Alts

[Pasta Prime]

Ok a been searching and couldn't find what i was looking for.....

So tomorrow Im going to help my buddy run some wire and I'm not to familiar with multi alt set ups.

He has four alts in his Yukon and right now he only has one run of 1/0 running to his battery bank in the cab (two batts).

His starter battery is not seperate from the rest of the system.

Is it better to run a line off of each alternator to the rear batteries or run multiple lines off the front battery to the rear?

So all four alts daisy chained to the front battery and say four runs going back to the rear batteries?

All four are HO alts. He also just got a MLA module we will be installing as well.

What about grounds? Not sure what his current ground situation is.....

[AMI CUSTOMS]

what size are the alts?

[Pasta Prime]

They are the DB electrical 250's I believe.

[AMI CUSTOMS]

One run of 1/0 off each alt to the rear is fine then, and do one run of 1/0 off each mounting bolt on each alt for ground to the rear. Then do one run power to front battery off one alt and one ground to front alt.

Or you could run all four alts power and ground to front battery first then go to rear batteries. You will have total of 8 cables thru the yukon. 4 power, 4 ground. Also make sure he does BIG 3 in 1/0 at same time.

[Pasta Prime]

Ok cool thats what I needed to know. Thanks!!

and the alts stay daisy chained together right?

Oh and he has the big 3 done already

Edit: How do you like that head unit? I have the DNX9140 and it is painfully slow. I tried to get it to update and I cant make it for some reason.

Edited May 13, 2012 by redrebel66

[AMI CUSTOMS]

Ok cool thats what I needed to know. Thanks!!

and the alts stay daisy chained together right?

Oh and he has the big 3 done already

Edit: How do you like that head unit? I have the DNX9140 and it is painfully slow. I tried to get it to update and I cant make it for some reason.

Yeah either daisy chain them and run individual ones as well or just do the second method and run all cables to the front battery first power and ground for each alt (8 cables total) and then 8 to rear.

I also have a 9140 in my EVO and I know what you mean, this one is lightning fast compared to that unit. It is the best kenwood double din I have had. And you have to do updates with the SD card on the 9140 for it to work right I believe.

[Pasta Prime]

Thanks man i appreciate all the help today!

From what i read and tried, the firmware update i think it was used a disk and the gps update used the sd card. I had to update the firmware first so the gps would update but I could never get it to work.

So after thinking about this again, i was doing some reading on the Kenwood forums and there is some kind of issue with Vista when burning the software to disk. So Im gonna try it in Win7 and hope that works.

[AMI CUSTOMS]

I bet that is it, I used Win7 and didn't have any problems and now that I think about it was on a burnt disk.

[Freshman6969]

ami....why ground off each alt to the rear? curious is all, i cant see why that would be a good idea, not doubting you or anything, just dont see the benifit of it, wouldent it be more efficent to just ground them to the batts in the back? and have grounds front to back off the front batt to the rear batts?

[AMI CUSTOMS]

The alternator is the charging source you need power and ground to complete the circuit, electricity takes path of least resistance so it all starts at the alt, so ground at the alt. Simple as that!!!!