UPDATE -more measurements
With no charging from converter or solar, battery bank full, turned on a bunch of lights to get 26 amp draw showing on Trimetric. House Batt v 12.7 tapering slowly.
Cranked engine -- amps jumped to plus 13 and house at 13.1v So that means for a moment there alternator amps was 39, in line with that 37 I saw last time. After a short time, things sort of settled at
Engine batt 14.40 , house batt 13.5, amps plus 0.3 (so about 26 amps from alternator. All about the same as OP test.
Out front with meter, voltage still tapering, battery and starting relay both 14.37 with solenoid input 14.36ish.
Later I got 14.32 in and 14.16 out across the solenoid. 0.2v is about normal, so ok there.
Now for the jumper cable trick running from engine area back to house batts by-passing stuff. By now, engine batt is 14.06 and house is 13.5, with amps minus 0.3, so alternator doing about 26 amps still.
Jumpered the neg path only from engine battery neg post to house Tri shunt. No change in voltages or amps.
Jumpered the pos path from solenoid output to house batt pos. Amps jumped from -0.9 to pos 1.1 a gain of 2 amps. House voltage no diff seen (too small to measure?)
Tried a couple more times and got same results--about a 2 amp jump by-passing the pos path between solenoid out and house batt in. -2.1 jumped to 0.6 So alternator now down to 24 amps with the lower eng voltage.
Disconnected and Tri again showed minus 26.3 amps from all those lights being on. Ended test, turned converter back on.
Some of the voltage drop is reduced as alternator/engine batt voltage settles to normal while the house batt voltage holds.
Improving the pos path will get me about 28 amps instead of 26 amps.
