RS2000 charge light not working ??

Hi Guys,
 
So i went out to start the car this morning after sitting there for a few days, and for some reason the charge light is not behaving.
 
Usual behavior is that the charge light will come on (with the park brake light) when i turn the car to accessories, and will then go over after i start it. But now its not even coming on when i turn to accessories.
 
I started the car, and turned on all the things i could (radio, heater, high beams etc), and the charge light did flick on, but as soon as i gave it a rev it went away (this tells me the globe for the light itself is OK)
 
I tested the voltage while charging and it was down around 12.09 V. I would have thought it should be higher than that.
 
Anyway, can anyone think of any reasons why the charge light might not be coming on when i turn on the accessories.
 
Also - just as a side note, is the brake warning light also meant to come on with accessories?.
 
Dave
 

The charge light wire coming off the back of the alternator I was not aware of.
The fact that the alternator is now common to both these problems (charge being down and charge light not working properly).....could this point to the alternator being the issue?.

I have nice thick wires earthing the battery to the chassis.

Dave

Sorry knightime....I'm not following what that actually means?

Does that mean without the charge light working, the alternator won't charge?. Surely I must have that wrong?

Dave

Thanks peter.

Any pointers as to what the problem could possibly be?

Dave

Yeah the charge across the battery is fading. IE when the car is running there is apparently no charge and the voltage of the battery continues to drop. It also does not change with an increase in revs.

I had another alternator lying around so just tried that with no difference.

They are Bosch alternators.........no external regulator?. Would also seems a bit odd that both alternators are buggered. The original one was working fine two days ago and showed no signs of deterioration.

Stumped!

Dave

Hey Craig.

Have checked all fuses and all are in order and contacting correctly.

Yeah I used my Multimeter to check the connectivity and they were all fine.

I was under the impression that if the fused wire was blown to the starter, the car would not start at all. ??

Mine starts fine, just doesn't charge, and the charge light doesn't come on..........although it has come on once.....but not since.

Thanks Matt.
 
Would shorting the charge light wire from the alternator straight to the globe do anything?. From what "Knightime" was saying, if the globe isn't working, then the alternator will never charge. To me this insinuates that the problem is a little deeper than the globe not working (IE a blown globe).
 
Im also pretty certain the alternator should be OK (or more to the point not the problem). Clearly I could be wrong, but the alternator that was in there was not showing any signs of playing up (in fact it looks like it was recoed not too long ago), and the replacement alternator I put in the afternoon also demonstrated the exact same symptoms.
 
Obviously I could have two dodgy alternators, but again referring back to Knightime.......the alternator seems to be a symptom of an underlying problem, not a cause.
 
Anyone got any more idea or solutions they can throw up?. Im still grappling with this one.
 
Dave