I have a 15V 30W generator in my car. I want to hook up my headunit, two 12" subs, 3 amps, and four 50W speakers. I MUST keep the generator, is there any way / anything I can do to make this work without going through multiple batteries, or having the lights dim when I have the system on?

All suggestions are appreciated.

 

by generator I assume you man alternator. They are normally rated in amps how ever so I am confused about rating them in watts...

There is no way your factory alt will power all that man........ Extra battery's come after replacing the alt so that will not help either. unless you change it i would not do anything more then a deck and 4.

 

He actually has a generator. We have been speaking about this issue in the classic forum.

I would look into getting a secondary alternator with another battery and using it only for the stereo. You could run the battery in the trunk and probilbiy find or make a bracket to bolt up a secondary 1 wire alternator.

 

I don't want to have to bolt up another accessory to the engine. Is there any way this would work without having to add an alternator to the engine?

Would it work with the generator?, or will I be spending countless hours of frustration? What would happen if I put all of that stuff in there now without adding another battery / alternator?

 

I see a couple problems.

First I hope you mean 300W 15V on the genertor. Your generator puts out whatever number is before the W as that implies wattage. With a 300W generator you have to leave enough for the car to run without a stereo, and then design the stereo to make up the difference in RMS wattage.

For instance.

If your gen is 300 watts and your car requires 150 watts for the electronics to operate, then the rms power for the headunit and amp should not exceed 150 watts. I would also recommend leaving about 10% of the capacity of the generator to deal with peak loads. To determine how many watts it takes to run your car use a multimeter to get the voltage and current. Power (wattage)= V (voltage) x I (current), figure out the output of your generator, and you are good to go.

 

I am pretty sure that is not a typo. There wasn't much on a 64 that needed electricity.

You will be fine up until the point you try to hook up an amp, almost any amp.......... Any amp made to drive a single sub is going to take more then 30 watts.

 

I agree 100% ttocs, if it is actually a 30W generator, then anything more then just an HU will be a death sentence for the generator.

 

yeah, no typo 30W. It currently has a 10 disk cd changer 1 amp with a reproduction oringinal deck.

So you guys think that there is no way I would be able to get away with that?

Do you guys know if they make reproduction generators, for originiality sake, that have a higher wattage?

 

There is no way man. If you're already using an amp for your stereo, that leaves one amp for the car to operate. I bet your lights are dim with just the addition of an aftermarket changer and HU.

 

Speaking from experience in my '66, when I hooked up a 300W amp and a 10", it really didn't help the everyday reliability. The car would still run, but you would have to charge the battery if it got below 50 degrees at night. Also, the headlights would flicker in brightness with the sub. You don't want to do this on that stock generator, no way jose.
A cheaper option than hooking up an alternator with another battery would be to run it off of another car battery in the trunk, but I am not sure how long that would last--and you would definitely need to hook it up to a battery charger every night. It's bootleg, but it would work..

Granted, my car has an alternator and not a generator as they did in 64 and 65, but I would assume that helped my cause.