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Dynamator
What's a Dynamator? It's sort of a modern answer to the dynamo on our Tcars. It's an alternator that's been designed to look like one of our C39/C40 dynamos right up to the threaded coupling on the back that couples onto the tachometer gearbox. In this package that only weighs about 3.5 kg (about 7.7 pounds) with the capability of delivering as much as 45 amperes. It is available in either a positive ground package, or a negative ground package. They are very different packages. You can't just convert a positive ground unit to become a negative ground one. Unlike our generators/dynamos the Dynamator has a built in voltage regulator. There's no need for the Tcar's Control Box. The only external component needed is a small relay for giving the positive ground Dynamator a kick to get it started. The relay comes with the positive ground package.
How do I know about these things? I'm a retired EE with a 1952 TD named Lazarus. My charging system cave me a lot of flack last month that I finally traced down to serious issues with the generator. In the past few months I've been helping a fellow TD'er work on problems with a positive ground Dynamator that he purchased from the U.K. It took a lot of learning and investigating to find that the problem was in the unit itself and was compounded by difficult to understand installation instructions. His vendor, Accuspark, was quick to replace the unit and it's now working fine. I bought mine, a negative ground unit, from Abingdon Spares last week. It arrived in last Friday's mail and it was in operation by the end of the day.
In reality, it is very easy to do the job of converting from a generator to a Dynamator. It's a bolt-in mounting, the housing emulates the C39/C40 dynamo. Only a few wires need to changed. If you're into the Stealth mode you can do the wiring using the wiring terminals on a RB106 (5 terminal) or RB95 (9 terminal) control box. But you have to gut the innards of the control box if you do that. It's very easy to do the wiring on a common 8-position terminal strip for about $10. My initial installation was with the use of an old RB106/2 control box that I eviscerated and wired up to handle the negative ground Dynamator. All of the things that I needed were picked up at my neighborhood NAPA store. The installation that I'm going with is in the form of an 8 terminal wiring strip that bought through Amazon for about $13 for a package of 4 including 4 shorting strips.
The Dynamator is made in the U.K. and is sold there by Accuspark. Here in the States they are being sold by Abingdon Spares for about $220. A caveat shows up in the Dynamator's packaging. On the instruction sheet is the message - "Note: The wire used as main feed from the Dynamator to Battery should be rated at at least 45 amps." This is true. It's hard to define what that really means. The wires in the 30 year old wiring harness in my 1952 TD are 10 gauge from the control box to the ammeter, and from there back to the battery connection. That's probably a total of about 5 feet. The questionable wire would be the one from the D terminal of the dynamo to the D terminal of the control box. That's perhaps 2.5 feet and is something smaller than 10 gauge, perhaps 12 gauge. In my installation I have replaced that wire with a length of 10 gauge just to be safe. I don't expect to be charging a dead battery from the Dynamator, so I'm unlikely to see much 30+ amp current. I have installed a 40 amp fuse in the D line from my Dynamator to protect the wiring. But, what you do is up to yourself. You can see my installation with the RB106 control box by clicking here. You can get a look at my installation with the terminal strip by clicking here.
These pages are going to be under construction for some time, so I'd suggest being sure to refresh you browser whenever you return to one of these pages. BTW, I have no financial stake in Abingdon Spares, I'm just a satisfied customer who's been dealing with them since I bought Lazarus in 1988.
Cheers, Bud Krueger
email to:Bud@Ttalk.info
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