I was thinking about going ahead and upgrading my house batteries with drop in lithium batteries, not sure now.One advantage of the batteries is they have low resistance and can charge quickly due to the ability to receive high amp charging.I recently viewed a Victron video displaying how a continuous high amp charging rate can overheat your vehicle alternator. (smoke coming from alternator)This is concerning as I would hate to ruin the alternator I read a lot of people just replace their AGM batteries with no discussion of alternator upgrades/changes, etc.So I am basically asking if anyone upgrades have any issues with charging using the vehicle alternatormike

Mike,Get a dc to DC charger. That will limit demand on the alternator and provide the ideal charging voltage too!Consider SiO2 batteries. Those are where I'm going to.

Depends on what you are driving. Yes lithium will accept more amps. If your connection to the battery is long it may have enough resistance to self regulate. A MH with a short fat connection could well put your alternator at max power. A DC-DC charger such as Renogy will limit the power. This will also isolate the house system so if you have a BIRD you may need to consider the limitations.The Victron test was done on a bench not an RV.

pianotuna wrote:Get a DC to DC charger. That will limit demand on the alternator and provide the ideal charging voltage too!TRUE !Modern vehicle charging systems do a very poor job of recharging flooded lead acid or AGM batteries. If you have a good sized "house bank" (four 6V golf cart batteries) and they are down to about 50% SOC, they will likely not get back to 100% ater 8-10 hours of driving !A DC to DC charger will fix this problem also.

time2roll wrote:A DC-DC charger such as Renogy will limit the power. More importantly, a DC-DC charger will make sure that the PROPER voltage is delivered to your house battery bank. This is the KEY to getting a full charge while driving,

Not sure how I would incorporate a dc-dc charge into a stock sprinter charging system. Anyone seen any documentation on this would be done?My house batteries are located in the engine compartment so should not be a long run. I have not looked closely yet on the wiring.

Lithium battery alternator charging. | Good Sam Community

14 Replies

theoldwizard1
Explorer II
Apr 01, 2021
time2roll wrote:
A DC-DC charger such as Renogy will limit the power.

More importantly, a DC-DC charger will make sure that the PROPER voltage is delivered to your house battery bank. This is the KEY to getting a full charge while driving,
theoldwizard1
Explorer II
Apr 01, 2021
pianotuna wrote:
Get a DC to DC charger. That will limit demand on the alternator and provide the ideal charging voltage too!

TRUE !

Modern vehicle charging systems do a very poor job of recharging flooded lead acid or AGM batteries. If you have a good sized "house bank" (four 6V golf cart batteries) and they are down to about 50% SOC, they will likely not get back to 100% ater 8-10 hours of driving !

A DC to DC charger will fix this problem also.
time2roll
Nomad
Apr 01, 2021
Depends on what you are driving. Yes lithium will accept more amps. If your connection to the battery is long it may have enough resistance to self regulate. A MH with a short fat connection could well put your alternator at max power. A DC-DC charger such as Renogy will limit the power. This will also isolate the house system so if you have a BIRD you may need to consider the limitations.

The Victron test was done on a bench not an RV.
pianotuna
Nomad III
Apr 01, 2021
Mike,

Get a dc to DC charger. That will limit demand on the alternator and provide the ideal charging voltage too!

Consider SiO2 batteries. Those are where I'm going to.

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Lithium battery alternator charging.

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