Hey all,

So I have a 2002 Excursion and on Halloween I hooked up my 18ft trailer with side rails and hay bales to tow around the neighborhood for the kids. I had orange (Halloween) Christmas lights wrapped around the side rails for some light for everyone. 3 "strings on each side. I had a small 150w inverter that I used to power them. What was irritating was that the darn inverter would set its alarm off that it was not getting enough power. After a while I had to give it about another 150-200 rpm to shut the alarm off. The alternator is a newish (7 months) Bosch.
Electrical is not my strong suit, so do I have a low voltage issue with my alternator at idle or was I asking too much of the system at idle?

Thanks!
Joe

 

What does your multimeter say it's putting out for voltage?

 

I will do that tonight. Had a few moments at work to get a post together. Figured I would get it out there while I had a chance!

 

Between the truck lights, trailer lights, the possible electric brakes and maybe the A/C compressor, and the 150 watt inverter... you were using a lot of juice. 3 strings on each side doesn't tell me the number of lights on the strings, or if they're LED or something else.

The cigarette lighter is maxed out at 140 watts before the fuse goes (engine running), and the laws of physics say that converting one power source to another has some form of loss. To clarify, it might take 180 watts of DC to make a 150 watt inverter go to full power.

Given the situation, another 200 RPM was a small adjustment to make.