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need help for wiring camper van

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  • need help for wiring camper van

    hi
    I have a question on wiring my camper van.
    I have a solar system and was thinking of running a wire from vans battery to house battery.
    I was also thinking of using a stinger which only lets current flow when van is on.
    now would this setup hurt my charge controller?
    thanks troy

  • #2
    Hi Troy - Welcome to Solar Panel Talk!

    Hang around - there are the right people to assist you here.

    Russ
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]

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    • #3
      Troy what you want is easily accomplished with a Electronic Battery Isolator. They come in all kinds of current ranges with up to 4 ports.
      MSEE, PE

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      • #4
        Originally posted by Sunking View Post
        Troy what you want is easily accomplished with a Electronic Battery Isolator. They come in all kinds of current ranges with up to 4 ports.
        hi
        so with a battery isolator it wont affect solar controller?
        the stinger is a isolator and only works when ignition is on.

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        • #5
          What you are calling a Stinger I suspect might be just a mechanical relay and not electronic? RV manufactures and after market RV fitters are not known for using the best products available.

          But to answer your question I would need to know if the Stinger is Electronic or Mechanical. and if Electronic does it have any smarts built in or interact with the Alternator voltage regulator. There are two issues with Mechanical Relay types.

          1. They will fail eventually and most likely failure mode is WELDED CONTACTS. On the flip side high resistance from pitting or OPEN CONTACTS.

          2. The real issue however is the voltage regulator in your alternator is designed for AGM and/or Lead Calcium Cranking batteries aka SLI (Starting-Lighting-Ignition) where as deep cycle batteries are made from either Lead Antimony or Pure Lead. The difference between them is the charging voltages are different and use a different Algorithm. SLI batteries use a constant or fixed voltage. That in itself is not a problem if they both used the same Float or Constant Voltage. Problem is they do not. SLI AGM batteries float @ 13.6 to 13.8 volts while FLA is a bit lower 13.2 to 13.5. This could cause a problem with extended drive times on fully charged up batteries by over charging your House Batteries.

          The Higher End Electronic Isolators replace the built-in alternator regulator with its own regulator to a higher value coming out of the alternator, and have independent voltage regulators for each output port. That enables you to select port voltages independently of each other to the proper battery chemistry being used on the port.

          As for your solar charge controller no issues either way, it does not care. When the engine is running the solar controller will see the battery as fully charged and essentially shut down because the Alternator is a much Harder Source which provides many magnitudes of higher charge current. A good example is a hour of engine run time is about equal up to a weeks worth of panel time at 100 to 200 watts.
          MSEE, PE

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