Forum Discussion

Harvey51's avatar
Harvey51
Explorer
Apr 01, 2016

Quick mod to maintain engine battery from solar supply

I was thinking how strange it was to be hooking up a battery maintainer to the engine battery of the small class C parked in the driveway when I have a surplus of power from a solar panel on the roof....
Class C
pianotuna's avatar
pianotuna
Nomad III
Apr 02, 2016
The problem remains that the ECU "sees" the starter battery and limits charging according to that state of charge.

My 2nd circuit connects directly to the starter battery and I hope "drags it down" to force the ecu into action.

The only sure fire way to get more charging with a single alternator is to use an external diode on the alternator. Then it behaves independent of the starter battery.

So far I have not needed to do this.

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