how to: 2 270 H.O. alts on 1 battery bank ?

[Tarball]

I will state this fact, because I can prove it in my truck and was told the same thing before hand by MECHMAN, so of course I had to test it, they were right.

I run 4 alts, all same all connected to front battery(s) and then to rear back all equal lengths of cable and same power and grounds per alt.

2 external regs, 1 for each pair, I can turn 2 alts off, run either 2 or 4, nice feature. BUT

If I set the two external regs at different voltage, even a half of a volt (.5) what do you think happens?

Example one pair is running at 14.5 and on, second pair is set to 15.0 and off, what happens once I turn second pair on to where all 4 are running?

Food for thought....

Probably wrong but I would take a semi-educated guess and say that you would be charging at 15.0 from just the 2nd pair until you get enough voltage drop to dip below 14.5.

**Disclaimer - I have zero experience with 2 or more alternators in the same vehicle.

[scooter99]

Man this was very educational, set aside all the useless bashing that went on. Would be nice if that could be cleaned up by a mod and this could be made a sticky somewhere. You can even delete my post if necessary. It's like trying to listen to two grown people talk with a bunch preschool kids fighting in the background!

Ed I appreciate you taking the time to explain all this out. It extremely useful information for those of us who are trying to learn. I'm sure even the one's who thought they knew would understand they were wrong after reading this.