Is this even remotely possible? Over charging?

[Smokey Eddy]

Could an alt be over charging the battery?

One of my parents had to move the cars around in the driveway this morning before i left for class.
I come up to the car in a rush to go to class to the sound of click,click,click...
Hurray, that sounds JUST like my glow plug relay... long behold there it is, still brightly glowing my GP switch in its orange goodness.
I jumped the jetta and i noticed that my alt light was not on at all! not dimly, no flickering no nothing.

could the light be triggered by being over charged?

Also, my running lights no longer work and nor do my high beams. My running lights come on with the switch but then when i turn on the high's my lights go out...
I had this issue before but then it went away.
Fuse or relay?
My guess is relay. Anyone know which one?

[zukgod1]

Sounds like a relay to me Ed.

Better bust out the Bentley and start reading again.

Look for the DRL (daytime Running Light) relay.

[truckinwagen]

it is indeed possible to over charge a battery.
if your alt is putting out too high a voltage you can overcharge and boil off your batteries water.

a good way to tell if that is the problem is to pop the vent caps off your battery and see if the water is low.

it still sounds like a relay problem though.

[Smokey Eddy]

Aie aie fellas!
about that bentley...

[Zulfiqar]

you can only overcharge your batt with higher volts - if you regulator is duff.  I think you should check your grounds first

[Smokey Eddy]

I just checked the battery and it was very very low. well below the minimum mark.
I should regularily clean the grounds.

[truckinwagen]

clean the grounds really good, like with a grinder to get good metal to metal contact, and then re install with a good layer of dielectric grease on all mating surfaces to keep them from rusting/corroding again.

-Owen

[smutts]

BE VERY CAREFUL OF LOW "WATER" LEVELS


The gas in a battery is hydrogen and oxygen at the perfect mix,
after some use, the plates in a battery deteriorate, and bits can float around and get loose. The plates are close together, and a bit of crap can get dislodged and make a circuit between the plates. If you topped up the fluid, this happens "underwater", so no bang. But if this happens in that nice hydrogen oxygen mix now that the fluid is too low and the plates are uncovered, the battery grenades lots of plastic shrapnel and sulphuric acid. To bad if you were carrying it at the time. Seen a few good ones after the event at the scrapyard.

[macka]

Aie aie fellas!
about that bentley...

wanna borrow mine?

[jtanguay]

just use a cheap multimeter to check the alternator charging.  the voltage regulator is sort of like a big relay. once the set voltage is hit, it magnetizes the contact, and stops energizing the rotor, so the alternator can't produce a charge.  now i do believe some voltage regulators come with a little potentiometer so that you can adjust the charging voltage... so you might want to look into that.  but if not, then you could always find an old broken power supply from a computer, and snag the biggest resistor you can find, and wire that up to the voltage regulator.  it might just do the trick. just make sure you install it to the right lead on the regulator though!