Hi harrington73. Welcome to the forum. 14.14 volts is right in the middle of the acceptable range. How long did it take to reach 10 volts? If that was after it had been idling for quite a while, I suspect the battery just ran down. If that happened as soon as you turned on all of the loads, suspect a slipping drive belt or a defective diode inside the generator. If the belt is slipping, you will likely have poor power steering too.
The industry standard is to load test the charging system at 2000 rpm. At idle, the generator will not be able to produce the maximum current it is capable of. You'll be lucky to get half. When one of the six diodes is defective, the most output current you will get will be very near one third of the unit's rated output. 35 amps from a 100 amp generator will not keep up with all of the things you mentioned.
The generator should be tested on the vehicle. Most electronic testers will measure maximum output current under load, maximum output voltage under no load, and ripple. A defective diode will cause excessive ripple and wreak havoc on the numerous computers.
The next time you find only ten volts across the battery, try raising engine speed and see what happens to the voltage. Find out too how much current the generator can supply when load tested.
Caradiodoc
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Wednesday, September 29th, 2010 AT 9:11 PM