Bro

Just as a thought, some of the delco's are already battery sensed but wired up to make them machine sensed. If you post a piccy of the back of your alternator this might show up. Regards Arnot Thanks Arnott. Likely to be a few days before I'm back at the boat to take "piccy" but will do and would be grateful then for your further comments. Regards

Thanks Ken. Beta confirmed my alternator is Delco machine sensed but say they do not offer conversion. Wonder why they think it worthwhile for Iskra but not Delco.

I'm pleased that results justify installation for you and you are happy. At 10 sq m it would be to much of an external adornment for my taste so I shall continue to monitor solar and should it ever become a sizewise acceptable and all/most year round practical solution (winter performance?) I would certainly consider it strongly. For my purposes (not live aboard and the boat is connected to mains battery charger when in marina) the jury is still out, but I'm open to persuasion.

I bought a Meos from Diddydigital thro t'internet about 10 months ago and it has now gone belly up. If you bought from same place or any other outlet of Agenda Ltd (the parent company) please let me know how you contacted them as they are not responding to my e-mails.

Again, many thanks to those who have contributed. What with D+, B+ and suchlike now getting into the topic it's becomming a bit techie for me (though interesting) so, based on Arnot's comments (in particular the difficulty and reliability issues raised) I have decided to leave well alone. What I will do however is check the volt drop between alternator and battery terminals and make better if too high.

Many thanks to all who responded. Tony, if I understand correctly, you say there is no advantage in battery sensed operation compared to machine sensed (other than to counter volt drop between alternator and batteries) in which case I'm barking up the wrong tree and will desist. Not being 'lectrical (strictly clockwork, me) I don't understand relevance of your reference to split charge diodes and splitting the charge. Does it help if I say the alernator in question is a 100 amp Delco Remy fitted as standard equipment for domestic battery bank on my 3 year old 38 hp Beta Marine engine. The engine has 2nd alternator for engine start battery. My aim would be to speed the charging of domestic batteries (whilst the alternator kicks our 116 amps on start it settles to much lower rate more quickly than I would like). For further information the alternator seems to run at a steady indicated 14.4 to 14.2 volts regardless of amp output.

I believe there may have been topic on posibility of converting machine sensed alternators to battery sensed but my search reveals nothing. Shall be grateful if someone will give me a lead to such topic on the forum should it exist. Not that I know much about it but I believe a battery sensed alternator would give high charge rate for longer period than machine sensed and if so then possibly converting from one to the other would be advantageous (?). Thanks. Alan