HO alternator or extra battery

[Dafaseles]

Well, usually, when you bypass that ring, it causes drastic fluctuations because it's kind of confused and not quite sure what it needs to do. With it fluctuating before the big 3, you hadn't messed with or added any ground wires anywhere? 

The RVC will tell the truck to sometimes charge upwards of 15.3v, and also be that high on a cold startup. After it warms up, that can drop into the low 13 volt range when it decides it isn't needed. 

The fact that you unplugged the sensor, and it charges fine with no problems, leads me to believe that the sensor was bypassed in some way, or it was operating normally, and you just weren't used to the drastic changes in voltage it can tell the alternator to do

[audiofanaticz]

8 hours ago, Dafaseles said:

A little bit of headlight dimming, but that's mostly because of the stock halogen lights. If/ when I upgrade to LED's, they shouldn't dim any anymore. Because LED's don't use as much energy, they're not as prone to dimming because of quick changes in voltage.

That's actually not why LEDs and HIDs don't dim. LEDs don't dim because most of the time they have a some what regulated power supply with a wide range of voltages that they work at, typically 9volts to 16volts. I've already came across bulbs as low as 6volt and as high as 24volt on bulbs that are using a driver. With that regulated power supply it doesn't matter if you give them 9volts or 16volts neither one will be brighter than the other even though you think the led bulb running at 9volts would be dimmer than the one at 16volts.

Very similar for HID as well and those actually demand more current than a headlight during a startup but after warmed up they are drawing about the same as a halogen bulb would. The HID ballasts are designed to work on a similar wide range of voltages too, but the ballast is being powered by DC and converting that in to a much higher AC voltage to power the bulbs.

[Pak713]

Nothing was added prior to the big three. Also I didn’t remove my stock wiring from the battery after the big 3 either. All oem wiring is intact with the 1/0 added. So the negative cable from the factory still passes through the rvc ring. The drastic swings in voltages without the radio playing is what lead me to believe my alternator was getting weak. But that was only happening during the day. In the early morning or at night it doesn’t happen because the headlights are on. When the headlights are on the rvc doesn’t try and regulate the power like with them off.