Battery upgrade

Northstar AGM 27F

 

New to Tacoma world here.. Does anyone know if the stock alternator will maintain the XS Power D3100?

 

It should, but look into a Northstar AGM 27F. You will not be disappointed.

 

It depends on the total electrical load on the alternator, driving habits, and temperature. An easy way to tell it to measure the battery voltage with a digital meter before you first start you engine. If it is not reading a full charge ~12.8 VDC or greater, and the alternator is not able to keep the battery fully charged over time. The battery will start accumulating lead sulfate and you will start losing performance (CCA) and capacity until it eventually prematurely fails. This is a very common problem when aftermarket large audio systems are added to OEM alternators.

 

The thing is I haven't bought a new battery just in case the OEM alternator won't maintain the charge to a larger battery. I do have the tow package so I'm assuming I'm pushing 130A off of it. All questions being that I'm installing a 2800W system for two 10" subs that push 800 RMS each. They are DVC and apparently the wiring option for 4 ohms is the same as 2 ohms, but my monoblock has separate ratings for each. The 4 ohms being the full 2800w and the 2 ohms only being 1500w. Should I just do the Big 3 with 1/0 AWG? The same as my amp wiring, with either the Northstar or XS Power and my alternator should hold it's charge?

 

Simply stated, after an engine is started, the battery becomes a temporary storage device to make up of the difference between the total electrical vehicle load and the output of the charging system. The output of the charging system is based on the alternator's voltage regulation and RPM. Let's assume that you have a 120 amp rated alternator output at 3500 RPM and the total electrical load is 100 amps. Let also assume that at 1500 RPM the alternator is only producing 80 amps, the battery will make up the difference of 20 amps until it is discharged. If you factor in stop and go city driving the alternator's output will vary greatly, so more power is required from the battery. That is why "driving habits" are a major factor in premature battery failures due to the gradual build up of lead sulfate. If the engine is not running, the battery obviously supplies all of the electrical power to satisfy the vehicle's electrical load until it is discharged.

When there is a shortfall of power produced by the charging system and the battery is not recharged, there are couple solutions. First solution is to top the battery off with smart battery charger so that it can achieve a full charge to prevent sulfation and the second is to upgrade the charging system to a higher output charging system. I believe that you will find that the second solution will ultimately be a better choose when you start replacing alternators or batteries. In the interim, the first solution will prolong the life of the battery. If you decide to upgrade your alternator, driving habits can make the proper sizing tricky. For more information, please see Section 5 in the Car and Deep Cycle Battery FAQ on www.batteryfaq.org.

 

https://www.walmart.com/ip/Everstar...35&wl11=local&wl12=49988388&wl13=5131&veh=sem

 

After much research/consideration, I found nothing to convince me that any battery at any price lasts any longer than any other. I'm sticking with the OEM 27F. I've had very good luck with them over many years. It has plenty of CCA's and reserve capacity, 7 year warranty, fits perfect (my gen 2 came with a 24F w/option for a 27F). $139 dealer installed.

 

What is your worst case current requirements and driving habits?

 

Why would the capacity of the battery affect the ability of the alternator to recharge it? It might take a little longer if you allow the battery to discharge extensively, but as long as there's charging going on, it'll charge whatever battery is there. Dual battery setups don't seem to need bigger alternators, and they're maintaining at least twice the Ah capacity of the factory battery.

A 130A alternator will make 1820Watts at 14V, and if you're not rolling around with the volume near or at max on those subs, you shouldn't be drawing enough to be constantly discharging the system, and if you are running that much power into the sound in a truck cab while you're in it you'll have bigger problems than your battery in pretty short order (in my experience, even a 1000W system driving a single 8" bazooka tube plus 4 6.5" mains has far more capability than you'll likely want to sit that close to, if you run a 2800W system over 20% while inside the cab expect your teeth to rattle and forget ever seeing anything in your mirrors).

It probably wouldn't be a bad idea to put a real-time volt meter reading at the battery just to keep an eye on things though considering how inexpensive and simple it is to do. With the engine running, as long as the VM is reading 13-14, you're only drawing off the alternator, whenever it dips to 12 (or less), you're drawing down the battery

 

Plug this into the cig lighter socket to show constant Bat/Alt info. USA made.

BatteryMole Patented Monitor & Tester (12V Receptacle)

https://www.amazon.com/BatteryMole-...F8&qid=1498818352&sr=8-5&keywords=batterymole