Alternators
- Thread starter Tress
- Start date
Martyn
Supporting Sponsor, Overland Certified OC0018
Tress said:
I'd have to say a microwave isn't essential kit. One of the great things about remote camping is you have to spend a little more time doing things, and hopefully enjoying the time spent.
Cooking over an open fire, using a Dutch Oven, making popcorn in a popcorn pan all makes the experience. My own opinion is that by short cutting these experiences we devalue them. The more conveniences we bring into the outback the closer our experience is to staying at a KOA.
I know many will disagree, I am a minimalist who enjoys some creature comforts, so in some ways I'm the pot calling the kettle black.
But I digress. Once you come to your final set up post up so we can see what youre doing, I'm sure it will get the "EP" seal of approval :coffeedrink:
In the U.S. the Sterling power units are liscensed and sold by Promariner.
The models to look for are the Digital Mobile Charge 130- alternator to batt. and the Digital Mobile Charge 40 battery to battery models. For some reason Sterling has quite a few more amperage models in Europe that didnt make it here. Defender.com sells them for 465 and 373 respectively and has 10%sales on occasion.
Typically you can have your Alternators rewound for higher power output by a good 20% safely. This typically is much cheaper than aftermarket high output alts.
The Norcold typically cycles on and off depending on ambient temps inside your cabin where the fridge is stored. Typically in a 24hr period you will use alot less than your 24hours if its cycling on and off every 10-15min. and only runs for a few minutes to cool the contents. Full fridges and fridges with covers for insulation tend to stay cool longer on much less power....but sitting in a sun drenched vehicle can negate that real fast.
In a nutshell the Lifelines or true deep cycle batteries perform real well when theres considerably lower amp demands. Microwaves, hairdryers, coffee makers, these are all high draw items that would benefit using a cheaper generator since they arent run over long duration. The other option would be having the vehicle started for those short bursts of demand. Most rvs that run those types of items do so with banks(10+) deep cycle batts and generators weighing quite a bit and taking up lots of space. Hit the RV forums for tons of info if you are outfitting your RV...........but if you have anything smaller than a unimog.....you might consider scrapping the microwave etc. and hunting down info on exhaust manifold-heated burritos and croissants.
The models to look for are the Digital Mobile Charge 130- alternator to batt. and the Digital Mobile Charge 40 battery to battery models. For some reason Sterling has quite a few more amperage models in Europe that didnt make it here. Defender.com sells them for 465 and 373 respectively and has 10%sales on occasion.
Typically you can have your Alternators rewound for higher power output by a good 20% safely. This typically is much cheaper than aftermarket high output alts.
The Norcold typically cycles on and off depending on ambient temps inside your cabin where the fridge is stored. Typically in a 24hr period you will use alot less than your 24hours if its cycling on and off every 10-15min. and only runs for a few minutes to cool the contents. Full fridges and fridges with covers for insulation tend to stay cool longer on much less power....but sitting in a sun drenched vehicle can negate that real fast.
In a nutshell the Lifelines or true deep cycle batteries perform real well when theres considerably lower amp demands. Microwaves, hairdryers, coffee makers, these are all high draw items that would benefit using a cheaper generator since they arent run over long duration. The other option would be having the vehicle started for those short bursts of demand. Most rvs that run those types of items do so with banks(10+) deep cycle batts and generators weighing quite a bit and taking up lots of space. Hit the RV forums for tons of info if you are outfitting your RV...........but if you have anything smaller than a unimog.....you might consider scrapping the microwave etc. and hunting down info on exhaust manifold-heated burritos and croissants.
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I think you are making this much harder than you need to. Included in your calculations is a lot of power consumption you simply do not need. For instance, fans, vent, computer lots of lights etc. If you boil it down to the fridge and some lights, a standard two battery set up will likely cover it.
Trying to have enough battery power on board for every possible contingency will leave you with a truck full of batteries and not much else. If you consider that a 100amphour battery weighs roughly 75 pounds, you can see that carrying a lot of power gets heavy fast. Plus, you will want to keep some power in reserve to restart your truck.
Some random thoughts...
Your fridge does not run continuously. Keep it inthe shade and closed and it won't run much at all.
Charge your laptop while driving. Use it as you want, but when the battery gets low, put it away until you're driving again and have plenty of power available.
Use a propane or white gas lantern needed, or have a fire, or when it gets real dark, go to bed. I find that on long trips I tend to get up at first light and rarely stay up late. Dinner prep usually can be done in the light, with the cooking and eating as it gets dark.
Fancy battery monitoring is just one more gadget you don't need. An interesting toy for sure, but you don't need it. A toy that is useful and cheap is a DVM which should be part of your tool kit. You can tell the state of charge fairly accurately by the voltage reading, not by the gauge on the dash.
The microwave is a really bad idea, plus you need a really big inverter to run it. A camp stove works great and is part of the charm of camping out. Coffee maker--same thoughts. Get a kettle to heat water and a Mileta cone and you have low tech excellent coffee.
Your stock alternater will almost certainly supply enough current. If it isn't, you should stay home where you have wall power and your microwave.
I just got back from a week in Death Valley running 2 ARB fridges, Ham radio, stereo plus all the usual stuff like computer and camera charging, dome lights etc.. Only one morning did I get a no start condition. I self jumped with the dual battery system--no big deal.
If you want to sit for a week without running the motor, you are going to need one heck of a battery bank. It basically will not work in any practical sense, unless you don't run any electrical drains ata all.
AGM type patteries can accept charge at a pretty high rate. You'll be surprised at how fast your alternater will top your batteries up to snuf.
So, in my opinion, I would test your set up before you spend any extra money. Get a good dual battery system and try it. If you are constantly out of power, either get more capacity, or leave home some more stuff.
Trying to have enough battery power on board for every possible contingency will leave you with a truck full of batteries and not much else. If you consider that a 100amphour battery weighs roughly 75 pounds, you can see that carrying a lot of power gets heavy fast. Plus, you will want to keep some power in reserve to restart your truck.
Some random thoughts...
Your fridge does not run continuously. Keep it inthe shade and closed and it won't run much at all.
Charge your laptop while driving. Use it as you want, but when the battery gets low, put it away until you're driving again and have plenty of power available.
Use a propane or white gas lantern needed, or have a fire, or when it gets real dark, go to bed. I find that on long trips I tend to get up at first light and rarely stay up late. Dinner prep usually can be done in the light, with the cooking and eating as it gets dark.
Fancy battery monitoring is just one more gadget you don't need. An interesting toy for sure, but you don't need it. A toy that is useful and cheap is a DVM which should be part of your tool kit. You can tell the state of charge fairly accurately by the voltage reading, not by the gauge on the dash.
The microwave is a really bad idea, plus you need a really big inverter to run it. A camp stove works great and is part of the charm of camping out. Coffee maker--same thoughts. Get a kettle to heat water and a Mileta cone and you have low tech excellent coffee.
Your stock alternater will almost certainly supply enough current. If it isn't, you should stay home where you have wall power and your microwave.
I just got back from a week in Death Valley running 2 ARB fridges, Ham radio, stereo plus all the usual stuff like computer and camera charging, dome lights etc.. Only one morning did I get a no start condition. I self jumped with the dual battery system--no big deal.
If you want to sit for a week without running the motor, you are going to need one heck of a battery bank. It basically will not work in any practical sense, unless you don't run any electrical drains ata all.
AGM type patteries can accept charge at a pretty high rate. You'll be surprised at how fast your alternater will top your batteries up to snuf.
So, in my opinion, I would test your set up before you spend any extra money. Get a good dual battery system and try it. If you are constantly out of power, either get more capacity, or leave home some more stuff.
AndrewP said:
I hear ya guys but again, this trip is a lil different than a week or two on the trail, we are going to be living out of this van for close to 2 years and possibly more depending on how the trip goes, if possible we would like to drive around the world. SO while ya im willing to abandon many of the creature comforts (inherent), we are not going to be outbackin it all the time and no matter what, i want to have a significant amount of power available, or at least the capacity. Having said that we dont have the money or space to carry tons of battery so we are definitely willing to axe some of the stuff thats going to use a lot of juice, IE microwave, not so sure about the coffee maker, but i was thinking last night that if we ran another propane line toward the front counter than maybe we could get a real small propane cooker to boil water with or cook small things. THe only issue is i have heard finding propane in Cnetral and South America can be hard to put it mildly so thats another consideration. One way or the other, if there was one expensivish thing you would suggest we get that would help most with our energy crisis what would that be. As stated, we do plan to get at least 2 or 3 deep cycle batts, and will use heavy guage wire for everything we wire, but after these few things, is the vote for a smart charger, more batts, hi amp alternator? Once agin thanks for the input, i like the minimalist idea cuz really thats what the trip is all about but i dont want to go overboard with the concept quite yet!
:clapsmile
What about a small inverter? the original reasoning behind having one at all was so we could protect our computer, then we decided we might as well use a microwave if we have the inverter. But there are some smaller inverters out there that would use less power and require no wiring that would power our computer and protect it.
http://www.campingworld.com/browse/skus/index.cfm?skunum=36643&src=SRQB
This one should work right....
:victory:
http://www.campingworld.com/browse/skus/index.cfm?skunum=36643&src=SRQB
This one should work right....
:victory:
egn
Adventurer
Tress said:
The A2B charger must be matched to the alternator. The A2B must have the same or higher amp rating as the alternator because it has no internal current limiter. It passes what ever current you supply at the alternator connection to both the house battery and the car battery. It replaces the isolator because it has an internal isolator. It can also be used to convert a cheap charger with current limit to a multi-stage charge. If you want to get the maximum out of the alternator this is the right device. But the installation is more complex than with the B2B, but not as complex as adding a multistage regulator to the alternator.
The B2B charger has an internal current limiter and so can be used to charge from battery to battery. It is very simple to install by jsut connecting the input side to the car battery and the output side to the house battery. It is automaticaly activated when the voltage at the input side reaches about 13 V - the alternator is producing energy. It also replaces the isolator. But if you want to connect both battery systems for starting the car you have to separate the input of the B2B charger to avoid a short cut through the device when the engine is running. As the current is limited you can not get the maximum from the alternator. But for smaller installations this is no problem. The B2B charger is also very handy if you have different voltage at the alternator and the house battery because it may also contain a DC/DC converter. Here in Europe trucks have a 24 V system and if you want 12 V for the house battey than this is the way to go.
egn said:
Well this one is certainly a lot closer to budget restraints but it only puts out 40amp compared to the 130 from the A2B, but i mean i assume it would do better than the standard regulator right? One question, i dint notice anything about an alternator temp monitor, it says it monitors battery temp but nothing about alternator temp? Does this mean i have to monitor that myself or else upgrade the alternator? i found out i have a 100 amp alternator so im not sure which of these 2 to go with. Oh and what do i do with every thing thats pluggs into the selenoid if i plug the starting battery into the multistage charger? Or do i still go through the selenoid after i go through the charger?
:1888fbbd:
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egn
Adventurer
Tress said:
It does better as the standard regulator from about 80 % state-of-charge to 100 %. The reason for this is that the voltage rises above 14.0 V through multi-stage-charging and when the voltage sensor is installed it compensates for the voltage drop in the wiring.. It also keeps the voltage right according to the battery temperature. This not only prevents overcharging when it is really hot, it also raises the volatage when it is cold and ensures that the battery is getting full.
You don't have to monitor the alternator temperature here because the device cannot load the alternator fully. The other point is that the standard regulator will cause the voltage to drop when the temperature rises. So the B2B will reduce it's draw when the voltage drops below 13.2 V automatically.
I would recommend to go with the A2B if you need every power of the alternator because you don't drive many hours between deep discharges of the battery and you have a lot of spare power from the alternator.
But, you should remember that of the 100 amps of your alternator depending on all the devices you are using during driving (lights, radio, A/C, fans, ...) already 50 amps may be already used up. So the B2B may be ok.
Please look at the instruction manual of the B2B:
http://www.sterling-power.com/images/downloads/B2B_instructions_2007.pdf
Normally you won't need a selenoid anymore because both battery banks are separated by the B2B. The only reason to put an selenoid in would be to prevent discharge of the car battery by the B2B in standby mode. Here you put the selenoid between car battery and B2B.