Has any one ran a Alternator with a internal voltage regulator?
The one wire setups have internal regulators in them. The single wire is hooked directly to battery + these come online and charge at about 1,000 rpm. At idle they dont charge and just draw battery power down. This is because there is no voltage regulator sense wire typically off the ignition hot circuit that tells the regulator to come online and charge the battery. Additionally 1 wire setups stay hot all the time and unless you drive your car every day will kill your battery stone dead in short order.
( regular multi wire alternators ) An ign hot sense wire to the voltage regulator uses the amp draw of anything turned on while the vehicle is running as a sense to recharge the battery. Plus when you turn the ign key off no more power to the voltage regulator sense wire = an alternator that wont discharge thr battery when the car is just sitting.
You could say the voltage regulator is the (smart component) it tells the alternator (dumb component) what to do.
1 wire setups are great for race cars, and industrial applications. I mistakenly purchased a denso 50A 1 wire alt without knowing that these will not output at idle, so that really sucks for cruise night. Unless your running a deep cycle marine/RV grade battery.
I purchased a new 2 wire voltage regulator for my denso so i can convert it to allow a sense wire off my ign hot circuit, and a charging malfunction fault light. I would not recommend a 1 wire alternator based on what i found out, unless your putting it on a race car, or a piece of industrial equipment.
Hope this helps
Matt