New DENSO starter and alternator YouTube video
The DENSO video is a visually powerful movie that highlights the company’s pioneering credentials and the reliance that the vehicle manufacturers put on these vital components.
Including impressive statistics as to how the coil resistance and thermal losses of its alternators are cut by half, while delivering 50% more output from 20% less weight, and the high torque motors within its starters can generate fast and consistent power for effortless starting performance, the production clearly brings the company’s environmentally conscious approach into focus.
Alongside its concerns for the environment, the video also stresses the convenience that DENSO’s no surcharge or core return policy provides aftermarket businesses and how this helps to improve their processes and subsequently their efficiencies, and allows both distributors and workshops to deliver maximum value to motorists, the final end users and their ultimate customers.
Starter overview
Since a vehicle’s combustion engine cannot start unaided, an external force is required to provide the rotational speed required, so a starter is used to initiate the operation. The starter activates a built-in motor using the vehicle’s battery as the power source to start the engine. Unlike normal DC motors, the starter is only used for a short time, so despite producing a large output, is designed to be very small.
The starter primarily consists of an armature, pinion gear, magnetic switch, drive lever and overrunning clutch, and its construction can be broadly divided into the ‘motor section’ and the ‘engine engagement and disengagement mechanism’.
The starter has progressed in tandem with vehicle design, into a compact, lightweight, high-performance device. The 1970s saw the introduction of the pinion shift type (direct-drive) starter, followed in the 1980s by the development of the offset gear reduction type starter that incorporated a deceleration mechanism. By the 1990s, the reduction type starter utilised a high deceleration ratio to create an even more compact and lightweight solution. Making further reductions in size and weight, the planetary type starter was developed in the first decade of the 21st century, incorporating a planetary gear and ferrite magnets.
Alternator overview
The alternator is driven by the engine, via the auxiliary belt, and converts mechanical energy into electrical energy and supplies the required power to the various electrical loads. When power supplied by the alternator does not match the required electrical load (when all the electrical equipment is in use, or when the engine speed is low during idling etc.), the battery temporarily supplies extra power to the electrical equipment. However, during normal driving the alternator re-charges the battery to its original strength.
As engine speeds change constantly according to driving conditions, the speed at which the alternator rotates also changes, with the generated voltage changing in tandem. It is then the role of the regulator to control and supply the appropriate voltage to the various electrical loads, as well as ensuring that the battery is charged.
DENSO is a true pioneer of starter and alternator technology and the world’s largest original equipment manufacturer of rotating electric parts, with a global market share of more than 25%. As a result, its replacement starters and alternators are the smallest and lightest rotating machines for their output, delivering unrivalled efficiency, wear resistance and powerful performance.