Voltage regulator

myonlyfarmall · Jan 21, 2016

Hello, one of my friends bought a 12 volt regulator and he asked me about the wiring connections. Its a Delco 12 volt. It has connectors of Light-Battery-Field-Armature on it. We are not sure what the Light is?? any idea on hooking this up? Our Generator has "A" for armature and "F" for field on it

myonlyfarmall · Jan 21, 2016

.

Bob · Jan 21, 2016

The "L" terminal feeds power directly to the light switch, for those applications that have been wired that way.

Since yours apparently ISN'T, just IGNORE the "L" terminal and the regulator will function just as your old unit without the "L" terminal did.

Bob M · Jan 21, 2016

Connect it like Bob suggests (ie. no connection to the "L" terminal) and give it a try. If the ammeter indicates a charge with the engine running half-throttle or faster and the lights on, it's good to go.

However if the generator can't maintain a charge with the light burning you'll need to relocate the light switch "hot" supply from the ammeter to the regulator "L" terminal.

John T · Jan 22, 2016

Just to add a bit of theory and history to the Bobs good answers:

On the 3 terminal VR systems (BAT GEN FLD) Loads such as Lights or Ignition were fed off the Load (NOT Battery/Starter) side of ammeter which is electrically about the same as the BAT terminal on a VR as that's where its connected to.

On the 4 terminal (BAT GEN FLD LOAD) VR, those loads were fed instead off the LOAD terminal on the VR

THEREFORE either VR or either a 3 or 4 wire system can be modified to work as noted below. Its just a matter of where the loads are fed, LOAD on VR or BAT terminal on VR or load side of ammeter.

John T

pete 23 · Jan 22, 2016

Another reason for the load terminal is that , due to the regulator being a combination current and voltage regulator, the added light load they were installing on the tractors, the three terminal regulator could not utilize the 35 (approx) amp generators. With a three terminal regulator, if you need to add a charge to battery and run lights at same time, the typical combination current and voltage regulator would limit the current to about 15 amps. By adding a load terminal, they ran that terminal direct to the cutout, with no windings around the armature in regulator. Therefore, you could still draw about 15 amps to recharge a low battery and run lights pulling another 15 or so amps for a total of 30 amps (approx). A Delco Remy representative once told a class of us, those combination voltage, current regulators never did do a good job. IH finally wised up and used a full blown three unit regulator (separate current and voltage units) on the 06 series and they did a much better job.

Voltage regulator

myonlyfarmall

New User

myonlyfarmall

New User

Bob

Well-known Member

Bob M

Well-known Member

John T

Well-known Member

pete 23

Well-known Member

Similar threads