When I installed my 55/60 halogens, I added up the energy budget, and the 20
or 22 amp generator would be just sufficient at night with heater blower and
wipers. But as you say, stop and go tends to drain the battery
The original regulator would provide approximately charge-neutral voltage at
near max load. There is surprisingly little ability to recharge the battery
at night, even if technically there is an extra 5 amps headroom.
A modern electronic regulator that hold the output voltage right up to the
current limit of the dynamo WILL allow driving in stop and go traffic at
night. Classic Dynamo and Regulator Conversions in UK is introducing a new
line of electronic regulators at the big NEC show in November about a month
from now.
Also LED brake lights will help improve the energy budget when stopped.
-Tony
Sent from my iPhone
On Oct 15, 2014, at 2:14 AM, triumphs-request@autox.team.net wrote:
> Message: 13
> Date: Tue, 14 Oct 2014 23:17:19 -0700
> From: "Randall" <TR3driver@ca.rr.com>
> To: <triumphs@autox.team.net>
> Subject: Re: [TR] Headlight Update
> Message-ID: <007701cfe83f$ae5ae590$0b10b0b0$@ca.rr.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>
> Thanks for the correction, Adrian. I knew I'd seen them somewhere.
>
> The extra power may present some concern if you do a lot of driving in
heavy
> stop-and-go traffic at night, or make only short trips at night and still
> have the stock Lucas generator. Especially when combined with other loads
> (brake lights, wipers, heater), the generator won't keep up at low engine
> rpm and you may end your drive with a battery that is somewhat low. But it
> shouldn't be a problem as long as your next drive includes enough faster
> driving to recharge the battery.
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