Glenn Ashmore has accurately described the problem - load
dump. Depending on standard, load dump on 12 volts can be 60
volts or as high as 270 volts. Two standards are SAE J1455
and ISO 7637-1. As Glenn has accurately described, load dump
can be created by disconnecting a major load from alternator -
such as battery.

Another has too much experience without underlying theory.
His proof that something does not exist is that he
disconnected a battery and failure did not occur. Reasoning
equivalent to walking with only one leg which is why his
response is:
Absolutely bogus assumption about power output remaining constant. That leg called underlying theory is essential to understanding how things really work. Load dump means automotive type electronics must be designed beyond just the 12 volt power.

SGS Thompson defines load dump as:
- Peak voltage 80 to 100 volts
- Duration 300 to 400 milliseconds
- Series resistance 0.2 to 1 ohms"

Even laptop power supplies for mobile power cost more money
because load dump protection is required.

SG Thompson makes load dump protection circuits such as
LDP24 or RBO series. But they admit:
The protection at the alternator level is a quite new concept and
all the technical problems do not seem to be completely solved.

Yes, you were lucky in not damaging the alternator if
disconnecting when alternator was outputting power.

BOEING377 wrote:
Are zap stoppers really needed on alternators? These aftermkt devices claim to
portect alt. diodes against damage from transients. I can't imagine that
engineers at places like Motorola would design alternators that needed external
aftermarket devices to effectively protect them from transients. I have never
blown up an alternator from switching it in and out of a load, although people
say this is often fatal to the diodes. I have run alternators open circuit (no
load at all) with no problems. Was I just lucky?

Thanks. I gave up.

There are none so blind as those who will not see.

w_tom wrote:
Glenn Ashmore has accurately described the problem - load
dump. Depending on standard, load dump on 12 volts can be 60
volts or as high as 270 volts. Two standards are SAE J1455
and ISO 7637-1. As Glenn has accurately described, load dump
can be created by disconnecting a major load from alternator -
such as battery.

Another has too much experience without underlying theory.
His proof that something does not exist is that he
disconnected a battery and failure did not occur. Reasoning
equivalent to walking with only one leg which is why his
response is:

Absolutely bogus assumption about power output remaining constant. That leg called underlying theory is essential to understanding how things really work. Load dump means automotive type electronics must be designed beyond just the 12 volt power.


SGS Thompson defines load dump as:

- Peak voltage 80 to 100 volts
- Duration 300 to 400 milliseconds
- Series resistance 0.2 to 1 ohms"


Even laptop power supplies for mobile power cost more money
because load dump protection is required.

SG Thompson makes load dump protection circuits such as
LDP24 or RBO series. But they admit:

The protection at the alternator level is a quite new concept and
all the technical problems do not seem to be completely solved.


Yes, you were lucky in not damaging the alternator if
disconnecting when alternator was outputting power.

BOEING377 wrote:

Are zap stoppers really needed on alternators? These aftermkt devices claim to
portect alt. diodes against damage from transients. I can't imagine that
engineers at places like Motorola would design alternators that needed external
aftermarket devices to effectively protect them from transients. I have never
blown up an alternator from switching it in and out of a load, although people
say this is often fatal to the diodes. I have run alternators open circuit (no
load at all) with no problems. Was I just lucky?



--
Glenn Ashmore

I'm building a 45' cutter in strip/composite. Watch my progress (or lack
there of) at: http://www.rutuonline.com
Shameless Commercial Division: http://www.spade-anchor-us.com

"Glenn Ashmore" wrote in message
...
Thanks. I gave up.

There are none so blind as those who will not see.

w_tom wrote:
Glenn Ashmore has accurately described the problem - load
dump. Depending on standard, load dump on 12 volts can be 60
volts or as high as 270 volts. Two standards are SAE J1455
and ISO 7637-1. As Glenn has accurately described, load dump
can be created by disconnecting a major load from alternator -
such as battery.



Well, pardon me for asking you to address my question. In case you didn't
remember, since it always seems to slip your attention during your posts, I
wanted to know why the suppression is applied to the LOAD side of the
alternator diodes. Perhaps you two could stop slapping each others butts
long enough to try to answer that question.

True, there are none so ignorant as those who refuse to learn. Now that
we're even on stupid witticisms, can you try for a technical answer?

Ed

Ed Price wrote:

Well, pardon me for asking you to address my question. In case you didn't
remember, since it always seems to slip your attention during your posts, I
wanted to know why the suppression is applied to the LOAD side of the
alternator diodes. Perhaps you two could stop slapping each others butts
long enough to try to answer that question.

True, there are none so ignorant as those who refuse to learn. Now that
we're even on stupid witticisms, can you try for a technical answer?

OK, I am going to try one more time. What I am about to say was
verified yesterday afternoon by Randy Johnson, formerly of Cruising
Equipment and developer of the Zap-Stop and confirmed by the tech
support people at Balmar and Leece-Neville.

When an alternator is producing a significant percentage of its capacity
to a load, be it a battery, motor or other device and that load is
suddenly removed the output voltage of the alternator will rise. While
the rectifier diodes can handle higher than normal amperage for short
periods they cannot tolerate voltages significantly over their rating
for even an instant. Therefore if this voltage rise is not checked
there is a very good possibility that the alternator rectifier diodes
will be damaged.

The physical law of conservation of energy says that the amount of
energy output by a device must equal the amount supplied to it. The
power output of an alternator is determined by the amount of energy
being supplied by the engine. The amount supplied is a function of RPM
and torque. The torque is governed by the intensity of the magnetic
field. As the engine speed cannot normally be adjusted quickly the
regulator is used to control the magnetic field. This control is fast
but it is not instantaneous. As the field collapses, a back EMF is
inducted in the field coil slowing the process. Therefore there is a
lag in reducing the total power being produced. FOR AN INSTANT TOTAL
POWER REMAINS THE SAME. Power is volts times amps. As there is no
demand for the amps basic math says that the voltage must rise.

The current practice for preventing damage to the regulator diodes is to
place a sacrificial diode between the alternator output and ground to
provide an alternate path for the energy. Both of the alternator
manufacturers I talked to strongly recommend the installation of one of
these diodes whenever there is a possibility that a heavy load might be
suddenly dropped.

This diode will not conduct until the voltage exceeds a certain preset
limit determined by its construction. It has only one function: To
provide a way for the alternator to shed the surplus current so that the
voltage will not rise to a damaging level. The rectifier sees only a
slight drop in current demand and a slight rise in voltage. It does not
know anything about whether it is supplying the original load or the
protecting diode.

The protecting diode however has to bite the bullet and very often gives
its life in the process but it will last long enough to handle the surge
for the fraction of a second required to get the power output below a
damaging level.

That is about as simple as I can get it. If that is not satisfactory,
go talk to JAX. He is more on your level.

--
Glenn Ashmore

I'm building a 45' cutter in strip/composite. Watch my progress (or lack
there of) at: http://www.rutuonline.com
Shameless Commercial Division: http://www.spade-anchor-us.com

In article , wrote:

Ed Price wrote:

Well, pardon me for asking you to address my question. In case you didn't
remember, since it always seems to slip your attention during your posts, I
wanted to know why the suppression is applied to the LOAD side of the
alternator diodes. Perhaps you two could stop slapping each others butts
long enough to try to answer that question.

True, there are none so ignorant as those who refuse to learn. Now that
we're even on stupid witticisms, can you try for a technical answer?

OK, I am going to try one more time. What I am about to say was
verified yesterday afternoon by Randy Johnson, formerly of Cruising
Equipment and developer of the Zap-Stop and confirmed by the tech
support people at Balmar and Leece-Neville.

When an alternator is producing a significant percentage of its capacity
to a load, be it a battery, motor or other device and that load is
suddenly removed the output voltage of the alternator will rise. While
the rectifier diodes can handle higher than normal amperage for short
periods they cannot tolerate voltages significantly over their rating
for even an instant. Therefore if this voltage rise is not checked


Sounds like they need to make them properly, with higher voltage diodes.

greg

"Glenn Ashmore" wrote in message
...

Ed Price wrote:

Well, pardon me for asking you to address my question. In case you
didn't
remember, since it always seems to slip your attention during your
posts, I
wanted to know why the suppression is applied to the LOAD side of the
alternator diodes. Perhaps you two could stop slapping each others butts
long enough to try to answer that question.

True, there are none so ignorant as those who refuse to learn. Now that
we're even on stupid witticisms, can you try for a technical answer?

OK, I am going to try one more time. What I am about to say was
verified yesterday afternoon by Randy Johnson, formerly of Cruising
Equipment and developer of the Zap-Stop and confirmed by the tech
support people at Balmar and Leece-Neville.

When an alternator is producing a significant percentage of its capacity
to a load, be it a battery, motor or other device and that load is
suddenly removed the output voltage of the alternator will rise. While
the rectifier diodes can handle higher than normal amperage for short
periods they cannot tolerate voltages significantly over their rating
for even an instant. Therefore if this voltage rise is not checked
there is a very good possibility that the alternator rectifier diodes
will be damaged.

The physical law of conservation of energy says that the amount of
energy output by a device must equal the amount supplied to it. The
power output of an alternator is determined by the amount of energy
being supplied by the engine. The amount supplied is a function of RPM
and torque. The torque is governed by the intensity of the magnetic
field. As the engine speed cannot normally be adjusted quickly the
regulator is used to control the magnetic field. This control is fast
but it is not instantaneous. As the field collapses, a back EMF is
inducted in the field coil slowing the process. Therefore there is a
lag in reducing the total power being produced. FOR AN INSTANT TOTAL
POWER REMAINS THE SAME. Power is volts times amps. As there is no
demand for the amps basic math says that the voltage must rise.

The current practice for preventing damage to the regulator diodes is to
place a sacrificial diode between the alternator output and ground to
provide an alternate path for the energy. Both of the alternator
manufacturers I talked to strongly recommend the installation of one of
these diodes whenever there is a possibility that a heavy load might be
suddenly dropped.

This diode will not conduct until the voltage exceeds a certain preset
limit determined by its construction. It has only one function: To
provide a way for the alternator to shed the surplus current so that the
voltage will not rise to a damaging level. The rectifier sees only a
slight drop in current demand and a slight rise in voltage. It does not
know anything about whether it is supplying the original load or the
protecting diode.

The protecting diode however has to bite the bullet and very often gives
its life in the process but it will last long enough to handle the surge
for the fraction of a second required to get the power output below a
damaging level.

That is about as simple as I can get it. If that is not satisfactory,
go talk to JAX. He is more on your level.

--
Glenn Ashmore


Thanks for the more lucid explanation, despite the several gratuitous
insults. After reading your new information, I'll even go so far as to
retract my quip of a totally bogus explanation of energy within the
alternator; I now realize you were being more condescending than obscure. To
me, fast is microseconds or nanoseconds, and I guess you just live in a
slower world.

It further helps to hear that the Zap-stop only conducts a current similar
to the original load, and that for only a few hundred milliseconds. That's
probably why connecting the protection to the output of the alternator
doesn't kill the alternator diodes.

But that leads to another issue. You said the protection diode often fails!!

Question 1.: Why does the protection diode "often fail" if it's drawing the
same load as the alternator diodes?

Question 2.: You assert that the protection diode "will last long enough."
Is this some kind of smart silicon, in that it knows when it's OK to die?
Again, I'm not familiar with your world, but devices that I have seen in
which there is a failure under load usually fail under full load, or at
least not when most of the load has gone away. Whenever I cook off a diode,
it usually dies a lot faster than a couple of hundred milliseconds.

I would think that the protection diode would be sized so that it rarely
fails. After all, isn't a protection diode failure just another way of
describing load shedding? IIRC, you said that diodes that could handle
typical alternator currents could be had at Digikey for under a buck. Maybe
you should refer Xentrex, too.


Ed

The tone of the debate was set by you. I was only responding.

The field coil is a gigantic inductor compared to the inductors used in
high speed electronics like computers and radio frequency equipment.
When the field current is removed the time it takes for the magnetic
field to collapse is related to the strength of the field and the number
and centerline spacing of the turns. Strong fields take a lot of time
to collapse through a lot of turns of relatively thick tightly wound
wire so we are talking about milliseconds rather than micro or nanoseconds.

Diodes are rated by the voltage and amperage they can take and how long
they can take the power. The larger the combination gets the more
expensive and larger the diode gets. We are facing the limits of size
and economics. The Zap Stop is sized to "do the job" without pricing
itself out of the market. In most cases it will rarely fail but the
potential is still there. Probably the worst case would be dropping the
load on a large cold alternator bulk charging at full power. All that
power that was going through a 4/0 cable now flows through a few inches
of #14 wire and a fraction of an inch of diode material. That can
generate a lot of heat very quickly. The newer Zap Stops have a fuse in
series with the diode. The idea being that in the time it takes for the
fuse to blow the field strength drops below the damaging level.

It would be nice however if they added a little circuitry and an LED to
indicate when the diode had been fried. Right now the only way to know
that your alternator is protected is to periodically test it with a
multimeter.

The diode that the Zap Stop uses probably only cost a dollar or two but
the case probably cost another couple of bucks and it might take 5
minutes worth of labor to put it together and stick it in a box. Total
manufacturing cost is probably under 5 bucks. BUT, a general rule of
thumb is that manufacturing cost of any item should be no more than 25%
of retail price. If you put the word "marine" in the description it can
drop to 20%.


Ed Price wrote:


Thanks for the more lucid explanation, despite the several gratuitous
insults. After reading your new information, I'll even go so far as to
retract my quip of a totally bogus explanation of energy within the
alternator; I now realize you were being more condescending than obscure. To
me, fast is microseconds or nanoseconds, and I guess you just live in a
slower world.

It further helps to hear that the Zap-stop only conducts a current similar
to the original load, and that for only a few hundred milliseconds. That's
probably why connecting the protection to the output of the alternator
doesn't kill the alternator diodes.

But that leads to another issue. You said the protection diode often fails!!

Question 1.: Why does the protection diode "often fail" if it's drawing the
same load as the alternator diodes?

Question 2.: You assert that the protection diode "will last long enough."
Is this some kind of smart silicon, in that it knows when it's OK to die?
Again, I'm not familiar with your world, but devices that I have seen in
which there is a failure under load usually fail under full load, or at
least not when most of the load has gone away. Whenever I cook off a diode,
it usually dies a lot faster than a couple of hundred milliseconds.

I would think that the protection diode would be sized so that it rarely
fails. After all, isn't a protection diode failure just another way of
describing load shedding? IIRC, you said that diodes that could handle
typical alternator currents could be had at Digikey for under a buck. Maybe
you should refer Xentrex, too.


Ed



--
Glenn Ashmore

I'm building a 45' cutter in strip/composite. Watch my progress (or lack
there of) at: http://www.rutuonline.com
Shameless Commercial Division: http://www.spade-anchor-us.com

don't be upset, Ed trolls to test your conviction and real understanding.

"Glenn Ashmore" wrote in message
...
The tone of the debate was set by you. I was only responding.

The field coil is a gigantic inductor compared to the inductors used in
high speed electronics like computers and radio frequency equipment.
When the field current is removed the time it takes for the magnetic
field to collapse is related to the strength of the field and the number
and centerline spacing of the turns. Strong fields take a lot of time
to collapse through a lot of turns of relatively thick tightly wound
wire so we are talking about milliseconds rather than micro or
nanoseconds.

Diodes are rated by the voltage and amperage they can take and how long
they can take the power. The larger the combination gets the more
expensive and larger the diode gets. We are facing the limits of size
and economics. The Zap Stop is sized to "do the job" without pricing
itself out of the market. In most cases it will rarely fail but the
potential is still there. Probably the worst case would be dropping the
load on a large cold alternator bulk charging at full power. All that
power that was going through a 4/0 cable now flows through a few inches
of #14 wire and a fraction of an inch of diode material. That can
generate a lot of heat very quickly. The newer Zap Stops have a fuse in
series with the diode. The idea being that in the time it takes for the
fuse to blow the field strength drops below the damaging level.

It would be nice however if they added a little circuitry and an LED to
indicate when the diode had been fried. Right now the only way to know
that your alternator is protected is to periodically test it with a
multimeter.

The diode that the Zap Stop uses probably only cost a dollar or two but
the case probably cost another couple of bucks and it might take 5
minutes worth of labor to put it together and stick it in a box. Total
manufacturing cost is probably under 5 bucks. BUT, a general rule of
thumb is that manufacturing cost of any item should be no more than 25%
of retail price. If you put the word "marine" in the description it can
drop to 20%.


Ed Price wrote:


Thanks for the more lucid explanation, despite the several gratuitous
insults. After reading your new information, I'll even go so far as to
retract my quip of a totally bogus explanation of energy within the
alternator; I now realize you were being more condescending than
obscure. To
me, fast is microseconds or nanoseconds, and I guess you just live in a
slower world.

It further helps to hear that the Zap-stop only conducts a current
similar
to the original load, and that for only a few hundred milliseconds.
That's
probably why connecting the protection to the output of the alternator
doesn't kill the alternator diodes.

But that leads to another issue. You said the protection diode often
fails!!

Question 1.: Why does the protection diode "often fail" if it's drawing
the
same load as the alternator diodes?

Question 2.: You assert that the protection diode "will last long
enough."
Is this some kind of smart silicon, in that it knows when it's OK to
die?
Again, I'm not familiar with your world, but devices that I have seen in
which there is a failure under load usually fail under full load, or at
least not when most of the load has gone away. Whenever I cook off a
diode,
it usually dies a lot faster than a couple of hundred milliseconds.

I would think that the protection diode would be sized so that it rarely
fails. After all, isn't a protection diode failure just another way of
describing load shedding? IIRC, you said that diodes that could handle
typical alternator currents could be had at Digikey for under a buck.
Maybe
you should refer Xentrex, too.


Ed



--
Glenn Ashmore

I'm building a 45' cutter in strip/composite. Watch my progress (or lack
there of) at: http://www.rutuonline.com
Shameless Commercial Division: http://www.spade-anchor-us.com

Ed Price wrote:

"Glenn Ashmore" wrote in message
...
Thanks. I gave up.

There are none so blind as those who will not see.

w_tom wrote:
Glenn Ashmore has accurately described the problem - load
dump. Depending on standard, load dump on 12 volts can be 60
volts or as high as 270 volts. Two standards are SAE J1455
and ISO 7637-1. As Glenn has accurately described, load dump
can be created by disconnecting a major load from alternator -
such as battery.

Well, pardon me for asking you to address my question. In case you didn't
remember, since it always seems to slip your attention during your posts, I
wanted to know why the suppression is applied to the LOAD side of the
alternator diodes. snip

'Cause the average user won't be able to install a system inside
the alternator case? Further, it don't matter much, 'cause the
1/2 cycle of foreward output overvoltage current sinked via
zapstopper is sufficient to load out all the overvoltage current
generated by the no longer energised field as it collapses?

--
Terry K - My email address is MY PROPERTY, and is protected by
copyright legislation. Permission to reproduce it is
specifically denied for mass mailing and unrequested
solicitations. Reproduction or conveyance for any unauthorised
purpose is THEFT and PLAGIARISM. Abuse is Invasion of privacy
and harassment. Abusers will be prosecuted. -This notice footer
released to public domain. Spamspoof salad by spamchock -
SofDevCo