I just got off the phone with Greg at RT Engineering, the company making the nice solid-state instrument cluster voltage regulators. It seems he has the same difficulty I do in my automotive lighting gig: neither of us has had the time to update and expand our websites to reflect our expanded and evolved activities.
Turns out Greg has devised several really ingenious (and much-needed) options for improving our cars' compatibility with upgraded charging systems. He can rework the ammeter itself for much lower internal resistance, thus greatly bolstering the ammeter's robustness — high current will still peg it, but won't hurt it. He can create "stealth" ammeter to voltmeter conversions by means of a custom "voltage sender" (like a fuel gauge sender or engine temp sender) driving a fuel/temp gauge with the original ammeter face on it (or, for extra money, a custom voltmeter face can be created in the style of the original ammeter). He can build a widget containing a new chip which, if I understand it correctly, will send up to 100A right through to the battery while providing a lower-current "drive" for the original ammeter. He can build another widget which alters the voltage regulation such that a modern alternator can be used for its strong low-RPM charging but kept from putting out current higher than the car's wiring can safely handle.
The active shunt idea (discussion here and here) is a good one, but every such build seems labour-intensive and cumbersome, and the resultant devices need cooling fans and are rather conspicuous (large) in the engine bay. We've long needed a compact, easy, drop-in solution, and I think we now stand on the edge of having several really good, easy, cost-effective options for same.
I'm inviting Greg to drop in on this thread to talk over the options and get a sense of what might be the market for such creations. This is exciting, eh?
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