Re: General life-trafic-related rant

Graham Reed <greed@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
mroberds@xxxxxxx writes:
Also, the 280 W probably is a relatively short-time rating; it is
predicated on some part of that load being a battery that will start
charging back up and drawing less current.

Yup, ask ST1100 owners with the 28A shunt-regulated alternator what
happens when you put a bunch of extra load on it, like aux lighting
and heated gear.

Shunt regulation? On an alternator? I understand how it works if you
have a relatively high-impedance power supply, but with spinning lumps
of copper?

(I think I've mentioned before that most of my experience on vehicles
with not enough wheels came from Bikes Made Weird. Everything was
pretty much like a car, only smaller. It wasn't until later that I
found out that most other bikes are not made that way.)

In semi-related news, I recently rented an F150 pickup. For some
reason, it had a current transformer on the negative battery cable,
right next to the battery. I'm not sure who wanted to know, as there
was no ammeter on the dash; maybe they all get one regardless of which
gauge package there is. I kind of hope it's not part of a control loop,
or yet another trigger for the revenue^Wmalfunction indicator light.

The DRLs and interior lighting also consipred against me. When I got in
the truck at night, the gauge cluster illumination came on by itself. I
started the engine and the high-beams-on-less-current DRLs came on.
*The gauge cluster lights stayed on.* It wasn't until after I had driven
a few miles and went to adjust the heater that I wondered why there were
no lights on the HVAC controls or radio; the answer was that the
headlight switch was off. [0] I turned it on and everything behaved as
expected. I then wondered about running lights, including tail lights,
so when I got where I was going I did an experiment. As it turns out,
you can drive that truck at night with the gauge illumination on and a
reasonable amount of white light coming out of the front with NO TAIL
LIGHTS WHATSOEVER. AHS.

Matt Roberds

[0] Before the "Gee, you don't memorize the complete technical manual
for every rental car you drive?" posts start, I will say that I
*did* know where the switch was. The combination of the DRLs and
the gauge lights made me think that the exterior lighting was
automatic, which is not uncommon on late model vehicles. I did
foolishly assume that the designers of the truck weren't actively
trying to kill me.

.

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