NRALIFR wrote:
S Davis wrote:
When you did your setup did you have a single alternator or dual alternators, with the 4 gauge you should have been able to pull 80 amps. What kind of amps where you seeing, was lack of alternator capacity the problem?
I’ve unfortunately never had a truck with dual alternators, but I don’t think alternator capacity has ever been a problem. My 2016 F450 has a single 200 amp alternator. I’ve upgraded the charge wires on three previous trucks ( ‘84 F250, ‘95 F350, and 2010 F450) and had satisfactory performance, though each one performed slightly better than the previous truck because I made some changes each time.
I increased the wire gauge on each truck, starting with 10 AWG on the ‘84, and ending with 4 Awg on my current truck. All the previous trucks had the typical charging system: two starting batteries and an alternator with an internal voltage regulator. I connected the upgraded camper charge wire directly to the alternator.
This worked well on the three previous trucks, with the alternator almost keeping up with the draw of the fridge running in AC mode from an inverter while we were driving (about 33 DC amps). I say almost because I could see that the camper battery would lose a little ground while the AC heater was on, then it would charge a little when the heater was off. As long as the fridge tstat wasn’t set so low that the cooling unit ran all the time, the camper battery stayed above 90% (on the Trimetric).
On my 2016 F450, I found that the charging system had changed quite a bit. The starting batteries and the alternator are all connected to this component, which I could never find any information on.
I suspect it’s for the ECM to monitor and control the voltage output of the alternator(s). Because of this, I was very apprehensive about connecting a load directly to the alternator. So, I connected to the starting batteries instead. The charging performance wasn’t even as good as the 2010 F450, despite using larger wires. We were ending the day with a camper battery around 70%. I had to find another way to improve the charging performance from the alternator.
:):)
Ok thanks for the info, I am hoping for decent charging, my 2013 2500HD has a second 120amp alternator to the aux battery with studs to connect at the 120amp factory fuse. With 1/0 DLO to the batteries I am hoping for a 100amp charging rate.
