Ah yes. Old proverb.
Easier to raise roof than lower floor.
If a person want to use their intelligence to transmit alternator power to remote batteries, consideration should be given to installation of a three phase AC remote rectifier. This is an intermediate range solution and it works wonderfully up to around fifty feet line distance.
Three ten gauge wires will pass a hundred amps with ease. And because it is AC there is a lot less loss than doing it with DC.
BUT!
I am leery of suitability with some of the more sophisticated Engine Control Unit voltage regulators.
With newer trucks, the ideal way is to do this with a second alternator. All the brackets and pulleys are available over the counter. There's nothing like charging 100 amps at idle. Couple the 2nd alternator with a remote rectifier and a decent voltage regulator and then engine charging would become rational.
An hour spent jamming 200 amp hours into the batteries makes it worthwhile.
Solar is great until it isn't. Compromises, compromises. Restrictions on running a generator, no sun, there seems to always be some kind of fly in the ointment.
