fan controller question

Bad Sport said

Does a fella have to upgrade alternators and all that to run an electric fan?

Click to expand...

Two schools of thought on that. One is that if your battery stays charged over a week, then "good enough", since all components should work properly off battery voltage alone (12.6 V). That means your battery is discharging when all loads come on like radiator fans and recharging when they are off.

The other school would say for optimal operating (headlights at max brightness, ...), you want the alternator to power everything even at peak load, thus maintaining ~14.2 V always. If so, you need a bigger alternator and insure the output wires can handle it, or better bypass the ammeter & bulkhead by wiring it straight to BATT+ (MAD Bypass).