[Captain Howdy]

In article . com, "Mariachi"
wrote:


All automotive alternators naturally produce AC current. But they
have a set of rectifiers, diodge bridges, to convert to DC.

Yes, this is true, but with that said you still won't see any AC voltage in
your car.


Let me ask you this? If the alternator doesn't supply enough
amperage to power up your stereo system, doesn't it take excess energy
from the battery to compensate for the alternator... Does it solely
depend on the amperage that the alternator is putting out... or both
the battery and the alternator. So if my amplifier requires 30 amps
and my alternator only supplies 12 amps at the moment... doesn't the
battery supply the other 18 amps?


Yes is does, but also keep in mind that if the alternator does not keep up
with the power demands of the car and battery included, you will end up with a
no start dead battery.

The power is drawn from the dominating power source which in most cases in the
alternator, because most batteries lose voltage fairly fast when under load.
The alternator also has an easier time dealing with loads because it has next
to no recovery time and operates at a higher voltage then the battery. The
alternator also loses output under low rpm's and this is where people notice
headlight dimming the most. Stereo's aside, you might notice that most cars
get major headlight dim just with the heater and wipers on when the car comes
to a stop, again that's because the alternator output drops while at idle and
in gear and the battery starts to take the load on, bigger batteries tend to
remedy this problem to a point since they tend to have higher output vs.
smaller batteries.