REFLECTOR: Bus, Battery & Electrical Instrumentation

[Wayne]

> Does anyone know of a simple way to detect out of bounds Alt ripple? ... 
> Jim S.
>
Now that you have reminded me  I used this technique for a quick and dirty 
power supply check on the equipment I used to troubleshoot.

measure the output voltage of the alternator with a decent digital meter set 
to AC volts. The ripple should be  fairly low. The DC component will be 
ignored by the meter due to the AC coupling to the meter.

Record in your logbook the value when your system was new and in good 
operating order under various load conditions. You should have a good clue 
because the ripple will jump up several hundred millivolts  (for a 12 volt 
system)  when a diode craps out.

Wayne