Charging system gurus, On board welder help - Land Rover

[badfysh]

2004 Land Rover Discovery adding 240a alternator and premier Power welder.

Adding an on board welder. Old alternator has two posts - "B+" Red to battery, and L to indicator lamp currently.

New system is a premier Power welder with a new alternator. Alt has a + post to the welder and multi plug with one blue wire and one orange wire to the Welder.

Then the welder has positive/ground directly to battery and a red wire to battery and a brown wire to +12v/ign

So... Where does the vehicle indicator lamp wire go now? Do I just lose the dummy light? Not a big deal I guess once the redarc volt meter gets installed but...

Will this cause any issues in general in terms of the system now missing this connection?

Thanks.

 

[WSS]

Better than the dummy light is seeing the voltage. A simple voltmeter (nothing too complicated) will tell the health and status of your system. For instance, at rest, no charging, you should be able to see what your batteries charged voltage is and then be able to see a draining or dying battery if it creeps below your normal before it is a critical stranded situation. Same with the alternator, you can see charge voltage and when it has stopped charging before the batteries are dead. For instance, after a start, volts might read 13.8, when batteries level out, it might read 13.2. When engine is off, maybe 12.6 charged. You know your lunch was too long if it is 11.8v LOL

I use a USB smart charger in my lighter receptacle that shows voltage. I have a few of them. They work fine and no wiring needed. Not sure if the Rover is OBDI 2 style, but some gauges can be programmed to show voltage as well. The ScanGauge II does a good job of showing vitals.

 

[rgallant]

@badfysh You can get the voltage via Torque (or similar app for Iphones) and a bluetooth ODB reader

 

[badfysh]

Yeah, I'm not worried about the voltage reading using upgrades....

My question was more in terms of will the car have an issue if I unplug the dummy light?

Update: light unplugged, no issue so far.

Thanks.

 

[LessiePMcCord]

You need a good welder for this. Land Rover is a high-performance car to do all this work on your own.