Need Advice For Off Road Lamps

[PineRidge]

<font color="blue"> Even if you go above the ability of your alternator's capacity you will probably be fine IF you don't go too far above the capacity and IF you don't run your lights for too long. Basically what will occur is you will draw down your battery slowly. When the lights are off, the alternator will begin to recharge the battery. So if you work for an hour or two at night, maybe a night a week, then you are drawing down your battery slowly you should not have any problem, but if you work mostly at night and seldom in the day, then you will draw the battery down too much.
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Bob thats good, thats what I wanted to hear. The majority of my work is done during daylight hours however when I get involved with a project I hate to quit. Now that the days are getting shorter I might be using the TC for a couple of hours into the darkness, especially for clearing snow in the Ohio Valley.

Just didn't want to spend a couple of hundred bucks on a good set of lights only to find out that they damaged the electrical system or destroyed the Optima battery that I just installed.

 

[Bob_Skurka]

We have some real electrical experts on the board, and they might want to jump in on this, but I got a lesson when I was looking at putting an inverter on my tractor to run some power handtools.

What it boiled down to, and if I am wrong I'm sure someone will set me straight, is that you don't ever want to take the battery below 75% of its charge and you don't want to draw it down to anything near that level too often. If you find you are working too many nights for too long, then you would be better off upgrading your electrical system with a new, larger alternator.

So if you are running your extra lights and they are drawing down your battery slightly beyond your alternators ability to charge it, you'd easily be able to run for a couple hours. Someone with more technical knowledge can tell you how many hours if you tell them your electrical load, but in simple terms <font color="blue"> (the kind of terms my wife says I understand) </font> I think I pretty much summed it up.

 

[DocHeb]

I've been churnin' my head thinking about the extra lights I "need" for my TC40D. Do you (or anybody else with a TC40) have a clamp-on Ampmeter that could be used to see the tractor's "typical draw", maybe 15 minutes after starting the tractor? That would give us the amount of alternator capacity actually available, (i.e., the amount of capacity above the typical tractor requirements.)

 

[PineRidge]

Chris it just so happens that I have aTC-40D & a clamp on ampmeter. Give me some quick instructions and I'll get us both a reading.

 

[DocHeb]

With that post I have described my entire practical knowledge of ampmeters! /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif Perhaps someone more experienced than I can tell how to measure the output of the alternator. I would be interested in how many amps are generated while the tractor is running with the headlights lit. It would give you an idea on how much alternator capacity would be available for extra electric toys.