straining tripac alternator?

It depends on your electrical system in the truck, the condition of the batteries, the cable and wiring... The older these items, the more strain on the system. There is no real "this is it". Every truck will be different. You will just have to figure that out for yourself.

I know on mine, mainly due to the age of my batteries, if I fire up the coffee pot first thing in the morning, I am going to have to start the truck, especially in this cold weather. If my batteries were fresh, I would not have this issue. Again, back to the variables.

My stereo, I have a separate and semi isolated AGM battery in the closet on an isolator wired into my ignition. I have three amps in there, three sets of speakers and one ten inch sub under the bunk. The system figures out to 3400 watts, the reason I installed that fifth battery in the truck. They call this the Big 3 in the car audio world, upgrade wiring, alternator and battery so as not to strain the electrical system of the vehicle. The same applies to our trucks and running accessories.

You can add up all of your voltage and figure out how many amps all of it requires and use that as your baseline. I don't know if this answers your question or not.

 

Two years is about the norm. Myself, I stripped out all of the cabling under the truck, from the batteries to the motor and replaced. I used over 100 feet of 0 gauge welding cable and quite a bit of smaller gauge cable for grounds and such. Every bit of cabling on my 2008 ProStar was green and more or less shot. I was honestly surprised the truck even started when I discovered the condition of all of this cabling. I was having electrical issues, and upon replacing this cabling, those issues went away and I am now getting better life out of my batteries too. This set will have gone three years.

 

3 times you've been hit? Son, you might want to re-evaluate where you're parking.

 

You just stay where you are, apparently they're leaving the rest of us alone.