Subaru ej22 not charging the batery

[wackos00]

hey all how's it going, I posted this on VWKD so sorry if your reading it twice but...
bit stumped here. I was driving a long on Friday and I ran out of electricity! so I think my alternator is dead as my battery is only 1 month old, get specked home, Saturday morning phone the scrap yards they don't have a 2.2 legacy but they do have a 2.5 quad cam, (hanford hall if anyone is interested in it, didn't look at the engine much as all I wanted was the alternator) take my alternator along to check its the same and it is, so £40 done, take it home fit it, but still no luck, the alternator doesn't kick out a charge! Yesterday morning I take both alternators to a automotive electrical engineers and they bench test them, say both work but my old one the warning light doesn't work anymore.... Hmmm fit the 'new' one again double check everything and clean all my earths. Still no charging! Spoke to a friend of mine and he asked about my battery light on the dash board. It doesn't come on ever, put the key in turn it the light doesn't come on, oil light does but the battery one doesn't. Start her up and the light doesn't come on. He tells me to check the light bulb so I swap the battery and oil bulbs around and they both work. So am I right in saying the alternator needs to be excited to start charging, this is new to me so bear with me, and if so could it be a relay sticking/no working? or some wiring come undone somewhere?
Cheers,
Jack 95 EJ22 non turbo

[toomanytoys]

Check the feed connection on the alternator.. IIRC even with engine off there should be some volts available (alt conected to starter which is connected to the battery) maybe there is a break in loom to the starter conection?

I could be thinking this through wrong though... brain is a bit frazzled at the mo...

Yes, an alternator needs a few volts to be able to generate volts..

[wackos00]

Ok I'm still an idiot, I was getting 12v both sides of the light in the on position and when she was running. So double checked and where I had joined the subaru alt light wire to the orignial vw one it had broken so 1 piece of chocky block later and all is good! why is it that when ever something brakes it takes me 3 days to figure it out??
Cheers,
Jack

[RJES]

I've just replied to the same topic on vwkd