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Re: still a mystery. Posted by Bill S [Email] (#1209) [Profile/Gallery] (more from Bill S) on Fri, 12 Jul 2013 13:46:08 In Reply to: still a mystery., sandy hague, Fri, 12 Jul 2013 12:21:10 Members do not see ads below this line. - Help Keep This Site Online - Signup |
That battery light definitely is an integral part of the charging system. The initial current flow through that light (lighting it when you first turn the car on) provides the initial excitation energy to the alternator. Without it, the alternator can't "wake up" and get to its self-energizing state, and the alternator (probably) won't make any juice. You'll run on the battery until it's depleted, then weird things start to happen when the voltage goes low.
The bad part of this system is that if the bulb burns out (or if the wire from that bulb gets disconnected, especially at D+ on the alternator, which is easy to do), you won't get any charging and to make matters worse you also won't have any indication that anything's wrong until your battery's dead. The check for this is supposed to be to make sure the battery light illuminates when you first turn on the car, but, honestly, how many people remember to do that?
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