got the email that parts have been shipped.....

 

parts in....

 

write up soooooon.........

 

very interesting - thanks

 

I can't wait to see, Love learning new things! keep us posted.

 

P/S fluid is a hydraulic oil. It's not very conductive of electricity. It's an insulator. Which is why you will find oil used in electrical transformers (insulation and heat sink), coils, solenoids, etc. With that theory, any amount of P/S fluid in your alternator will impede current flow. That's even before it cooks on to conductive surfaces as varnish. I guess one could suggest than extremely contaminated oil could become more conductive as it heavily oxidizes. Though P/S fluid doesn't thicken up as easy as motor oils. Not many free floating conductive ions in P/S fluid. You most often see ATF's which have a few hundred PPMs total of Phosphorus, Sulfur, Zinc, and Boron combined.

 

Seems like since the Alternator spins at 4x crank speed, (Or more) that if it got oil in it, then dust you'd end up with an insulating layer that would prevent proper cooling of the guts when in use.. And it might actually conduct, also the diode packs typically are not sealed so grunge could get in there and short things as well.. Its a electro mechanical gadget,, they wear out and fail..

 

Alternators are air cooled and suck in air, road dust, road oils, and all sorts of nastiest inside as a normal course of business. Surely any contamination will harm cooling and reduce life, but there wouldn't be any difference between P/S fluid and other normal road contaminants in this regard.

The copper wire has a clear insulation/varnish on it and the electronics are sealed against all of this:


(You can't see the clear insulation on the wires, but it's easy to know its there. If it wasn't, the stator wires would short out!)


Per the comment above, hydraulic fluids and oils would generally insulate. Most of the business going on inside the alternator relies on magnetic fields, which won't care about any of this.

 

Correct, however this situation is arranged like a capacitor:



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitance


In it's pure form, that (very thin) layer of insulating oil should be insignificant when you work out the math. (The normal air gap is also an insulator, so... one would have to calculate the difference between air and air + the very thin layer of oil.) ^ Contamination would create a messy wave form for the alternating current the alternator puts out, but the rectifier should clean that up.