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19 hours ago, Dafaseles said:

So yeah, those mechman alternators have an internal exciter. So if it's unplugged, it'll still work. 

By headlights flickering, do you mean dimming when the bass kicks? Or actually turning on and off? I ask because you're not dipping into dangerous levels. And as far as the charging light goes, you'd have to look into it, but you can usually find a way to bypass it. 

Now if your headlights are actually turning on and off, that's a safety issue. But if they're just dimming, the hard truth is there really isn't a 100% fix for it. I don't know if you have LED's, but people have had success running LED's because they use less electricity than standard headlights and taillights, thus dimming less or almost entirely gone

I was on another forum and a guy said nothing can be connected to the negative battery terminal or if would immediately trigger the charging system light. Another guy says he had his truck tuned and it bypasses the smart charging system 🤷‍♂️🤷‍♂️

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1 hour ago, Jimbo1227 said:

I was on another forum and a guy said nothing can be connected to the negative battery terminal or if would immediately trigger the charging system light. Another guy says he had his truck tuned and it bypasses the smart charging system 🤷‍♂️🤷‍♂️

So then you could try just grounding the amps and alternator straight to the frame and just leave the stock battery ground, though if you can't up that size, I fear it may not be sufficient. 

I was hoping to mention bypassing it. If you watch one of Steve's videos of him wiring up his externally regulated mechman alts in his Cadillac, his battery charge light comes on and I forget exactly what he did, but he bypassed it. A really old video of his Lexus, he could never get 14.7 volts in there Lexus because of the regulated charging system, and he bypassed that as well and got his 14.7.

Now, I realize I'm telling you this and not knowing in the slightest where you could even look for such a thing. And for that, I'm sorry. That trucks electrical is very particular and it seems if an ant farts on the ground wire, it acts up. Although everything else about the f150's seem to be solid as hell. I wish I had an answer bud. I really do

2011 Chevy Silverado under construction

My build log here. Check it out! 

 

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13 minutes ago, Dafaseles said:

So then you could try just grounding the amps and alternator straight to the frame and just leave the stock battery ground, though if you can't up that size, I fear it may not be sufficient. 

I was hoping to mention bypassing it. If you watch one of Steve's videos of him wiring up his externally regulated mechman alts in his Cadillac, his battery charge light comes on and I forget exactly what he did, but he bypassed it. A really old video of his Lexus, he could never get 14.7 volts in there Lexus because of the regulated charging system, and he bypassed that as well and got his 14.7.

Now, I realize I'm telling you this and not knowing in the slightest where you could even look for such a thing. And for that, I'm sorry. That trucks electrical is very particular and it seems if an ant farts on the ground wire, it acts up. Although everything else about the f150's seem to be solid as hell. I wish I had an answer bud. I really do

I know it’s ok though you have been a great help. I’ll find a way. Hopefully by taking everything off the negative of the starting battery will work and I’ll just ground everything to the second battery in the back. Worth a shot

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23 minutes ago, Dafaseles said:

So then you could try just grounding the amps and alternator straight to the frame and just leave the stock battery ground, though if you can't up that size, I fear it may not be sufficient. 

I was hoping to mention bypassing it. If you watch one of Steve's videos of him wiring up his externally regulated mechman alts in his Cadillac, his battery charge light comes on and I forget exactly what he did, but he bypassed it. A really old video of his Lexus, he could never get 14.7 volts in there Lexus because of the regulated charging system, and he bypassed that as well and got his 14.7.

Now, I realize I'm telling you this and not knowing in the slightest where you could even look for such a thing. And for that, I'm sorry. That trucks electrical is very particular and it seems if an ant farts on the ground wire, it acts up. Although everything else about the f150's seem to be solid as hell. I wish I had an answer bud. I really do

Now someone mentioned that the car recognizes the smaller pulley lmao

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27 minutes ago, Jimbo1227 said:

Now someone mentioned that the car recognizes the smaller pulley lmao

I don't see how the vehicle knows the size of the pulley. I'm assuming the truck sees a variation in amperage that is considerably more than it's been programmed to see and it's confused. 

So, I know it's a Chevy, but this is what I'm doing, I'm not running 2 batteries, I'm running lithium in the back, so I refer to  the battery delete spot as the front battery, and the lithium, the rear battery. Because of the RVC, I have to do a ground connection as well as a positive connection. I don't have anything grounded to the frame. I will have all my amplifiers grounded to the rear battery. Because I have so much current to ground, and I can't ground to the frame, I'm going to do 2 runs of 4/0 straight to the alternator casing. From what I've read, the alternator casing is considered the end of the electrical loop as well. The front battery (delete) only has one 1/0 ground coming from the rear, through the RVC donut, then straight to the engine block. 

Maybe this can give you some ideas on how to run your grounds to see if that works. 

2011 Chevy Silverado under construction

My build log here. Check it out! 

 

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8 minutes ago, Dafaseles said:

I don't see how the vehicle knows the size of the pulley. I'm assuming the truck sees a variation in amperage that is considerably more than it's been programmed to see and it's confused. 

So, I know it's a Chevy, but this is what I'm doing, I'm not running 2 batteries, I'm running lithium in the back, so I refer to  the battery delete spot as the front battery, and the lithium, the rear battery. Because of the RVC, I have to do a ground connection as well as a positive connection. I don't have anything grounded to the frame. I will have all my amplifiers grounded to the rear battery. Because I have so much current to ground, and I can't ground to the frame, I'm going to do 2 runs of 4/0 straight to the alternator casing. From what I've read, the alternator casing is considered the end of the electrical loop as well. The front battery (delete) only has one 1/0 ground coming from the rear, through the RVC donut, then straight to the engine block. 

Maybe this can give you some ideas on how to run your grounds to see if that works. 

I think some people just wanna have input lol. Well that makes sense. I’m gonna try some different configurations with the grounds and see if anything helps. I was watching one of Steve’s videos where he had to use an external voltage regulator to get the voltage up but his battery light was still on. I’ll just do some wiring and see what happens. I’ll keep you updated if anything changes

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31 minutes ago, Jimbo1227 said:

I think some people just wanna have input lol. Well that makes sense. I’m gonna try some different configurations with the grounds and see if anything helps. I was watching one of Steve’s videos where he had to use an external voltage regulator to get the voltage up but his battery light was still on. I’ll just do some wiring and see what happens. I’ll keep you updated if anything changes

There's a video on his Cadillac where he talks about how he bypassed the factory harness so the battery light turned off as well. 

Yeah, please keep me updated. I'm very interested in the solution

2011 Chevy Silverado under construction

My build log here. Check it out! 

 

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On 5/5/2021 at 7:28 PM, Dafaseles said:

There's a video on his Cadillac where he talks about how he bypassed the factory harness so the battery light turned off as well. 

Yeah, please keep me updated. I'm very interested in the solution

Very late to the party. Guess what, my alternator lost its mind. It started pushing 16 volts throughout the truck, headlights and interior lights started flickering and a rough idle. I called Mechman and sent them my alt to fix it. Send it back to them bro, theyre good people. Call them and explain whats going on and all the different things youve been doing and they will do a warranty repair. No point to let $700 go down the drain. But i will say one thing. I probably will not do a mechaman alt in the future. 

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Oh and also, I did more research into the RVC system on these trucks. This also may apply to Ford but as far for GM, The charging system will initially go up to 14+ volts and slowly drop itself down to around 13.5 volts constant. This usually happens after driving for awhile. Its completely normal for it to do this because this is how the charging system was built by GM. The charging system tells the alt to stop charging and keep it steady around 13.5. You can scrap this system tho by installing the external voltage system as you guys mentioned previously. 

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1 hour ago, Zori.L83 said:

Oh and also, I did more research into the RVC system on these trucks. This also may apply to Ford but as far for GM, The charging system will initially go up to 14+ volts and slowly drop itself down to around 13.5 volts constant. This usually happens after driving for awhile. Its completely normal for it to do this because this is how the charging system was built by GM. The charging system tells the alt to stop charging and keep it steady around 13.5. You can scrap this system tho by installing the external voltage system as you guys mentioned previously. 

You wouldn't happen to remember where out what website you found your information on the GM RVC's do you? I've only found a couple different places. If I can find more information, I'd like to. 

2011 Chevy Silverado under construction

My build log here. Check it out! 

 

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