Tripac 120A alternator replacement

The tripac evolution needs a whole new wiring harness to upgrade to 120 amps, it's pretty expensive. Over 1000 bucks with harness, alternator and labor.

 

Thermo King in Sikeston, MO said you don't need new wiring to upgrade to a 120 amp Tripac alternator. Just need a new (smaller) pulley, new belt, new (bi-directional) fan, and an ambient temp sensor that installs on the outside of the case. All that came to about 5 bucks south of $1k. I came in there with the alternator pushing 12.2 and shutting off, dude cleaned the connections, left with the alternator pushing 13.6-14.0 (what it pushed when it was new). Two days later now, a few hundred miles of bouncing down the road, now it only wants to push 12.2 again. Time for beatings.

 

I'm interested in how this worked out for the original poster.

I too am looking to upgrade my alternator on my pre evolution tripac.

Is this correct? All I need to do is pull the old alternator's fan off, get a new 1.8" pully and new belt, obviously, and install it?

Did you run into issues with the engine not being able to turn the compressor as well as the new higher output generator with the smaller pully making matters worse?

I was considering just using the original pully, rpms will be lower and amperage won't be peak but its still better than the 65 amp original I would assume.

 

I tried the small pulley with a 105 amp Delco, the engine would bog down and almost stall when trying to run my microwave or coffee pot. I ended up using the original TK pulley and belt and had no problems after that.

The low voltage alarm use to come on after a minute or two of using the microwave. The Delco alternator would maintain over 12 volts for 8 minutes.

 

Where do the wires with the bullet ends hook up to? They sell you the harness with no instructions.

 

Well the two wires I have left are supposed to hook into the freeze sensor in the evaporator. I'm just trying to find out where to tie into them. The pigtail on the updated harness is only about 3ft long. That gets it under the truck, but there is nothing there to tie in to. Guessing I have to run wires up in to the sleeper.

 

Guess I won't get the answer here either.

 

I made the conversion a month ago. Don't forget that the setting in the APU ECU computer need to be changed as well. I also replaced my batteries with 4x Optima Yellowtop T31A deep cycle batteries. I can go all night without the APU starting if I am charged at bedtime.
You will need a laptop that runs Windows 7 to access the APU ECU. Inside the brain box for the APU, there is a USB outlet. Connect a USB cable from this outlet to the Win 7 laptop. Once the APU is in standby mode, you will see E:/ drive on your computer. open it, and you will see several files, including a file named "START"; a Windows Batch File. open it and you get the TK Evolution Dashboard opened in Internet Explorer. On the left menu, select Unit Set Up. There is a drop down menu for "Alternator Capacity"-Select 120 Amp.
Now go to the "Programmable Settings". Here are my settings:
Charge Current Shut Off: 20 Amps
Engine Off Delay Timer: 8 Mins
Minimum Charge Duration: 0 Mins
HMI Display Brightness: 6
Run Time Period: 0 Hours
Cooling Dead Band: 3 F
Battery Voltage Restart Value: 12.1 (you will need to play with this value to get it to start the APU before the Low Voltage Disconnect alarms)
Low Temp Limit Cool: 60 F
High Temp Limit Cool: 80F
Low Temp Limit Heat: 60 F
High Temp Limit Heat: 80 F

I did not upgrade the wiring harness. I purchased the 120A alternator, the 1.9" pulley, the fan and a new belt from ThermoByProducts.com. I hope this helps.​

 

u don't need a password for that software to run??