Make alternator charge house battery better
Would this charge house battery better? Run a new heavy alternator wire to house battery first and use existing wire that goes from chassis battery to isolator to converter to house battery to charge ...
Forum Discussion
Engine alternators should provide about 14.5 volts for charging. If you have that at the engine battery but not at the house batteries, work on the connections. As Enblethen mentioned, you might lose half a volt in a diode isolator so worth changing that to a relay type. And you can lose half a volt or more in a poor connection. I fixed connection losses totalling a full volt and noticeably improved my charging but even a full day of driving doesn't fully charge half discharged batteries.
The thing is, alternators are not all that great at fully charging batteries. Cars are okay if driven more than a couple of hours a day, but with much less driving, the engine battery is not fully charged, especially in winter when a good deal of charge is used to start the engine. Alternators are set to 14.5 or a bit less to avoid damage to the engine battery when driven all day.
The advantage of a good solar battery controller is that it is designed to charge the battery in stages with different voltages - and to effectively stop charging when the battery is fully charged. We might be able to get faster alternator charging by using a good battery controller to charge the batteries. Of course it would need well over 14.5 volts. Perhaps a heavy duty DC to DC voltage converter could provide that.
The great advantage of solar power is that it prevents the batteries from discharging so much and charges for a much longer time.
The thing is, alternators are not all that great at fully charging batteries. Cars are okay if driven more than a couple of hours a day, but with much less driving, the engine battery is not fully charged, especially in winter when a good deal of charge is used to start the engine. Alternators are set to 14.5 or a bit less to avoid damage to the engine battery when driven all day.
The advantage of a good solar battery controller is that it is designed to charge the battery in stages with different voltages - and to effectively stop charging when the battery is fully charged. We might be able to get faster alternator charging by using a good battery controller to charge the batteries. Of course it would need well over 14.5 volts. Perhaps a heavy duty DC to DC voltage converter could provide that.
The great advantage of solar power is that it prevents the batteries from discharging so much and charges for a much longer time.
