Expected charging light behaviour

Gents, Is it normal for the charging light to glow faintly when the lights or fan are full on? Just noticed it now the days are darker... I'm commuting in it and all seems well so far. Starts right away etc. I'll give the battery a charge this wkend anyway but just wondered what the norm was really, cheers Bill

Same for me.....Pretty normal behaviour on a dynamo equipped motor.... I try to minimise usage of electrical equipment where possible. This helps to explain whats going on Cheers Gerry

My 68 Amazon is the same, the dark nights make the warning light slightly glow and when the fan is on it shines a bit brighter. In other words nothing to worry about.

Yup, completely normal for it to glow slightly when the lights & heater fan are on. :)

Thanks chaps. Interesting article Gerry, though mine's alternator'd it's good to see how the thing works. I shall have that fan running without fear then... It's so nice going to the site amid the sea of euro-boxes, 60s radio crackling away, heater heating, its fairly tempting to keep right on driving to somewhere, anywhere, just for the sake of it, cheers Bill

AMP Indicator function... 

Bill; If your vehicle has been converted to an alternator, the light is generally used to energize the field and so it functions somewhat differently from the original hookup and function, which I cover in the article...I'd check the system voltage at off idle (it should be around 13.5V, which means the alt is healthy)...I do recommend you clean all connections having to do with the charging system as a preventative measure. Also, you should consider upgrading the fuse-block as shown elsewhere on the SwEm site to safely handle the increased currents avaliable from an alt. Thanks for the reference, Gerry! Greetings from New England!

Hello there Ron, greetings from Old England! The alt is definitely throwing out plenty of charge. After reading, it did seem to call for a check of connections & the box. I've seen at least one earth point that's less than ideal, time to give it all a once-over really, cheers Bill

Not long after I got my second Amazon in 1988 I found that the connector blades at the top of the fusebox were loose. An ill considered thump with a hammer and punch just cracked the plastic so I got another from the spares box. After cleaning everything up with brake cleaner I flowed solder into all of the joints and made everything electrically sound again. After that I had to put all the lights and fans on to get a very dim red light. I don't think the Bosch system lends itself to being totally out when under heavy load due to it's position in the charging circuit. After soldering, new fuses are good especially the dumpy one. We all roll the fuses now and again but if you do this often you might find the pointy end gets cut off by the hole in the tab. If your charge light comes on or your gauges start giving strange readings you might want to look at the ends of the dumpy one. It might look sound but a meter across the connectors could show otherwise!