I'm helping a buddy wire his Locost. He has a small alternator of unknown vintage or make. The alternator has three terminals, the stud is obviously for the battery but there are two unlabled spade terminals. I'm assuming that one is for switched 12v from the ignition and one is for the idiot light. My question is will I do any harm in just connecting both of these terminals to the ignition switch. He's running a volt meter so he doesn't really need the idiot light.
Thanks in advance.
Most alternators won't charge without the idiot light hooked up. It acts as an exciter, or something like that. That being said, if you don't want to hook up an idiot light, you can put a diode on the positive terminal and hook the exciter wire to the diode, but make sure you've got it going in the right direction.
It would also probably help if we knew what kind of alternator we're dealing with. Can you post a pic?
Is it an internally or externally regulated alternator? If it's external, it's probably like the Mopar units. One heavy post to the battery positive and two field terminals. (OK, they aren't really dual fields but that's the slang). You'll need an external voltage regulator.
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