[TR] Dynalite alternator

[Anthony Rhodes]

Check the UK forums on this subject.  I think they were seeing an unexpectedly high failure rate. 

I think the failures were heat related.  The Lucas dynamos were limited by their cooling as much as they were limited by current through the brushes.   The alternators in an original Dynamo style housing will have similarly poor ventilation

The small diameter, compared to normal alternators means these are fairly low output designs.  Maybe 35 amps.  And they have trouble keeping cool enough at full power and seem to often melt-down

I would suggest retaining the stock dynamo and optimize it with a good electronic voltage regulator.  Use LED lights in strategic places to reduce total load.  LED tail  lights work well and save quite a bit of power.  Other running lights do not consume a Tom of power by comparison.  The headlights do also suck down a lot of current (at least good modern 55/60 bulbs do.  My old original Lucas sealed beams from 1967 were about 40 watts!!!)

Recently there have been some LED H4 bulbs that seem to reproduce the light pattern of incandescent H4's pretty well, and have lots of lumens.   I am not so sure how well they stay cool in the well sealed headlight buckets on TR2-6 vehicles, though. 

If you do not add extra high power accessories like 100 watt driving lights, then you are going to be OK with the original 19 amp C39 or 22 amp C40 generator!   They are good, and reliable!!!

-Tony

Sent from my IMSAI 8080

> Message: 1
> Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 12:54:47 -0700
> From: "Allan Stults" <acstults at hushmail.com>
> To: triumphs at autox.team.net
> Subject: [TR] Dynalite alternator
> Message-ID: <20160815195448.340A4200F8 at smtp.hushmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
> 
> Has anyone tried a Dyanlite alternator?  They're expensive, but I
> believe it would sure be an improvement over the generator in my '62
> TR 3.