noonie

Best idea and you're right about the capacitor/battery.
Also won't void your warranty if you follow directions
In fact on an older post he even agreed to a method of mounting a smaller motorcycle battery under the hood to act like that.



Fuseable links have been replaced by products like these.
http://www.electricvehiclesusa.com/category_s/52.htm

Roughly 4x the fuse link gauge size gives you the amperage rating.

I'm Batman

I have a 150 amp breaker laying around...seems to match the 140 amp alternator.

mrvette

Tell you what, that 100 amp fuse puppy there in Noonie's link, use that and your 4 ga wire, put that fuse down at damn near your starter bat cable, and you are fine...good to go....I can feel you safe from giant light bulbs and exploding battery.....in event of something stupid happening.....

btw, for all my tech background, BTDT, no blo fuses are no fun.....

don't ask, please......

been a while.....long while though......

I'm Batman

Those mega-fuses are great, but I've never been able to find a local store carrying the holders. Maybe I'll bug NAPA about it in the afternoon.

Running a fuse smaller than the rated output of the alternator seems a bit counter-intuitive.

Durango_Boy

That was my thought process for connecting to the BAT terminal on the alternator. There are three connections to the battery from that one lug. The stock direct connection, the larger gauge wire I added, and the 12V lead from the starter.

I thought with three connections to the battery I was safe from the spike cause by the alternator startup.

gyopp

Matt, in a few weeks I will be taking my car apart to install my Accel FI and when I do I will be following in Bullsharks steps and using the fan control supplied with the unit. I will have a SPAL speed control that I will be removing that I could let go of if your interested. I know some here don't like that controller but mine has given no problems. When hooked at the alt connection the spike would cause the fan to start everytime you cranked the engine. Move it to the starter, make sure you have a good ground, make sure the wire size is adequate, and no more problems.
Gene

Durango_Boy

That's an awesome offer Gene. Thanks so much. When you get to that point just PM me with what you want for it and shipping and I'll get some money sent to you. Thanks.

noonie

Unless your alternator is way undersized it will never put out the max.

The original fuselinks and newer megafuses are slow blow, primarilly for direct shorts anyway. Smaller wire than the rated output or fuse size is what causes fires.

pws69

I have been watching this (and the "closed") thread and decided to throw my 2 cents in!

First, he gentleman's name is Brian Baskin. I have had several exchanges with Brian, mostly regarding the technical aspects of fan controllers. Brian is a decent guy who wants to give people a solid alternative to the extremely deficient SPAL controller that many of us have purchased and fell victim to it's inequities.

From a technical standpoint (*see note below), Brian has a solid, heavy duty product that, when installed properly, should give long, reliable service. He has put a tremendous amount of time into testing his controller in a variety of situations to be sure it could withstand the harshness of an automotive environment. He DOES know how HIS controller should be installed.

Matt, you communicated with Brian about how you would connect the controller. You told him you wanted to connect it to the Alternator on the advice of someone who is NOT familiar with the controller. Brian told you NOT to do that because it could damage the controller. You then hooked up the controller the way you were told not to and, just as predicted, you burned up the controller. You then publicly bashed him about not being responsive and not fixing or replacing the controller you destroyed. That doesn't sound very fair to me?

I'd be willing to bet if you had contacted Brian privately, explained what you had done and asked nicely if he would work with you on getting it right, you would have made out much better. Why on earth should Brian (or any other vendor) succumb to a public bashing and fix something that was deliberately destroyed? Establishing that kind of precedent is certain death for any small business.

Many of us have altered our wiring so we now have a central junction (ala. MAD electronics) point where we tap off 12V for our accessories. I had my SPAL connected there too - which started to die last year and finally went completely haywire this year. While this is an excellent thing to do for lots of things (headlights, etc.), it is obviously NOT a good place to connect a PWM controller that is NOT designed to be connected there.

Bottom line is that when installing an electronic product, particularly in an Automotive application, it is very important to follow the instructions provided by the engineer who designed it rather than listen to some wannabe EE who hasn't got a clue about the application.

Flame on!!


*So, what do I know?
With over 45 years of solid hands on technical (hardware) experience, a BS in Computer Science, and a very active involvement in microcontroller/robotics design and experimentation (I have 3 different designs involving various forms of Pulse Width Modulation control circuits on my bench at the present time), I DO understand the design, workings, and implementation of "motor control".

So, why don't I build my own?
Automotive environments are some of the harshest to incorporate electronics into. Adding the nasty current profile and inductive characteristics of DC motors (particularly dual, high power fan motors) compounds the challenge. You need to fully understand and design for the absolute worst case scenarios to come up with a product that will withstand the natural abuse. Until I have the inclination and/or time to do my own experimentation and testing, I'll stick with what's available!

Durango_Boy

Really? You think I publicly bashed him? Maybe link to that because I can't recall ever bashing Brian or even his product. I said one of his controllers failed and I needed help. In no way shape or form has he helped or provided support to me as a customer.

I did try contacting him personally.

That was my first course of action. I tried contacting him personally but his website is down, phone number for technical support is disconnected, and my browser was blocking his email address as a pop up ad. I can post pics of what it looks like with my adblocker in place and what it looks like unblocked.

Also, I sent him PMs that went unanswered, and searched a few forums I knew him to be active on. Nothing.

pws69

I'm not trying to beat you up - just offering my observations, some advise and give you some food for thought from a different (the Vendor's) perspective.

S489

pws69, over here the SPAL controller is connected exactly as you described: central junction ala. MAD electronics. so far so good. but based on what you know, how should the connections be changed, or should a filter be added (if so what type)? if the connection is changed, won't that defeat the single point for the alternator's voltage sensing?

i've heard mostly bad stories about the Spal PWM and how great the other one is/was. Spal still sells many for cars other than vettes with no issue apparently. maybe most of them connect to the battery terminal right there in the engine compartment?

does anyone know what happened to that vendor? surely vette owners didn't put him out of business???

mrvette

OK, fine and dandy, I want a logical engineering type explanation as to just specifically, any decent PWM controller should care one whit damn wether i'ts across a battery or an alternator, keeping in mind of course that the currents across the alternator would never, hardly ever, on a max impulse loading of say 50 amps....ever enter the zero crossing level......

can you please explain why the controller should care???

lets keep it simple enough so others can understand....lets not get involved with motor theory, hysterysis, etc.....
and inductive kickback, unless you can prove how that affects your controllers....

BTW, all I wanted to see was a fused wire to the controller from the battery, even though I still feel the battery will not see proper charge voltages from the alt with all that additional loading from the fans appearing through that stock charge wire...wether i'ts fused at 40 amps or fuse linked....that 1/2 volt differance will be apparent to the battery under some operating conditions.....

baskin1

Well; let’s start with your posts in this thread, first, you told DB to put a 40A fuse in line with his alternator, so what happens when DB starts his car with a low battery and revs his engine up? Well, the alternator puts out full current, it blows his 40A fuse, and he ends up stuck in the middle of nowhere with a dead battery, do you care? Of course not, that's his problem, right?

What about the ½ volt drop you just mentioned? Here’s a voltage drop calculator, http://www.stealth316.com/2-wire-resistance.htm any one here can type in the parameters of 35A for a mark viii fan and ½ a foot of 14 gauge wire and see that a 6” piece of fusible link will drop less than 1/10 than what you say it will, more bad advice, no problem, right?

So, we’ve got two technical posts from you here, anyone here can leave their headlights on for 15 minutes, start their car, and look at their ammeter in order to prove to themselves that you’re incorrect on the first one, providing their own common sense doesn’t make that clear to begin with. They can see you’re wrong on your second piece of advice by simply using the link provided to the online calculator. With regard to your googled buzz words, most don’t even apply to a PWM, if you don’t understand that, you won’t understand the explanation now, will you?. Tell us, if you can’t calculate the voltage drop across a simple wire, how were you able to repair television sets as yiou claim? As pathetic as that claim is, it seems a lot more complicated than calculating the voltage drop across a wire, doesn't it?

The explanation has already been provided, and most people, with the exception of yourself understood it. So, given you in reality have never done anything more technical than an internet search, seem to consistently give bad advice, and don’t even own one of these controllers, how does anyone here owe you an explanation for anything.

With regard to the fuse, a fusible link is supplied, but we both already know that from our last discussion, correct?

Durango_Boy

Brian - About the email I sent last. Did you get it? Read it? Can we get this worked out?

mrvette

Brain, you know full well the amount of charge amps will depend on the battery condition and amount of discharge, assuming the alternator knows what the truth is.....through the regulator sense inputs....

so lets leave all that alone for now.....another topic....

the salient point of my comment to which you apparently replied was....

specifically WHY should any fan controller CARE where the fan power is derived from??? there is NO zero crossing on the alt output/input to your device... as it's a average over any wire length, link, fuse, gauge whatEVER....I understand power line ripple as well as you.....

so what gives??? specifically WHAT fails and WHY???

untill you can explain that clearly, in common parlance WE the uneducated fools can understand.....well your position has holes in it....

methinks.....

shafrs3

He includes a fusible link for that protection.

Durango_Boy

That link didn't seem to help me much, in fact it didn't blow. It's tests out just fine.

shafrs3

DB, fuses are to protect the wires and prevent fires.

Durango_Boy

In that case it did it's job, because the only fire was in the controller.