Beta 43 Alternator Issue

[Sea Dog]

3 minutes ago, baldlimey said:

I assume you can't get to a car at all, Rotec in Sutton-in-Ashfield happily replaced my Beta 38 domestic alternator from stock. They are about an hour away from you in a car. Might be worth calling them for advice 01623 453512 even if you can't get there.

Thanks for the info - good to have options opening up. We moved the car to the Shroppie and we're slowly catching up with it, so I'm not in any trouble.

1 minute ago, TheBiscuits said:

 

Just bear in mind it's Easter this weekend, so if you want bits shipping before the two bank holidays ...

 

 

Good call. 

[Sea Dog]

Ok, it stopped raining, so I got up from sitting by the stove and gave Lancashire Rotating Electrics a call on 01772 623600. Mark there couldn't have been nicer or more helpful and can do me a genuine Mahle regulator (MGX281 for future reference) for £30 + vat and £7.50 next day delivery.  Just got to work out where best to have it sent now.

 

My thanks to @Tracy D'arth and @TheBiscuits for recommending LRE. Thanks to other the contributors too for the other helpful advice and photos.

 

The key numbers for those who come along later...

Beta 43 150a 14v Domestic Alternator - Iskra IA1058 

(11.203.124; 200-05232)

Mahle regulator for above - MGX281

Lancashire Rotating Electrics, Leyland - 01772 623600

 

 

 

 

[nicknorman]

Dirt cheap here from eBay… https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/203194322209?chn=ps&mkevt=1&mkcid=28

 

[ditchcrawler]

2 hours ago, Sea Dog said:

No Travelpower. I do have a lovely blue mains charger, but I'm still in Tixall Wide with the rain coming down in stair rods - I'm not plugging in to one of CRTs extensive network of electric boat charging trees in these conditions!

Of course, starting this thread has convinced my occasionally hiccuping  domestic alternator to work flawlessly now anyway... So that's that fixed, right? 

Bit like tooth ache, it normally stops when you are sat in the dentists waiting room

[Sea Dog]

1 hour ago, nicknorman said:

Dirt cheap here from eBay… https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/203194322209?chn=ps&mkevt=1&mkcid=28

 

Well I'll go to the foot of our stairs - a good spot there Nick!  However... I've already bought it at 4 times that inc postage and vat. Then again, I couldn't identify the part definitively until I called LRE, so there's much value added there for me. I guess I'm content to bear the extra now and then if it keeps helpful businesses like them afloat.

[Tracy D'arth]

3 minutes ago, Sea Dog said:

Well I'll go to the foot of our stairs - a good spot there Nick!  However... I've already bought it at 4 times that inc postage and vat. Then again, I couldn't identify the part definitively until I called LRE, so there's much value added there for me. I guess I'm content to bear the extra now and then if it keeps helpful businesses like them afloat.

You will have the satisfaction of knowing it is genuine and guaranteed. And their advice and part finding time is worth money. Better the pro than than the discount.

[Sea Dog]

And just to round this out...

 

New regulator fitted this morning. The alternator didn't need to come off, just slackened to slip the belt off so it could be swung to get the back off. Obviously the cables need to be disconnected, but because mine's wired to keep the BSS inspector happy, the big red one goes dead when the domestic isolator is switched to off. (Not all boats do this to protect the alternator in case of inadvertent isolation, so if your alternator cable is direct to your batteries, you'll need to disconnect there so you don't accidentally learn to arc weld!)

Once that's all done, it's a two minute job (3 screws) to remove and replace the regulator. Mine had a fracture in one of the brushes, explaining the intermittent fault but confirming the diagnosis. Everything back together, belt tensioned and all is as it ought to be. Job's a good 'un.

For other Beta 43 Iskra 150a owners, all part numbers, etc, are in my post above.

Thank you again to those who contributed.

[Midnight]

I replaced the Iskra on my Beta 43 after I was told they weren't robust enough for an Adverc. It's still under the bed as a spare. I replaced it initially with a Mastervolt (Bosch) which burned out twice in the following 4 years due to the too large diameter pulley supplied by a supposedly leading boat electrics company. They naturally declined to help after Mastervolt technical help identified the problem. I then fitted a Prestolite 110amp from the local diesel electric suppliers which after a fiddle around with the wiring has done great service for the last 14 years. They are obsolete now or I would buy another one.  I'd be interested to hear of other recommendations.

[ditchcrawler]

2 minutes ago, Midnight said:

I replaced the Iskra on my Beta 43 after I was told they weren't robust enough for an Adverc. It's still under the bed as a spare. I replaced it initially with a Mastervolt (Bosch) which burned out twice in the following 4 years due to the too large diameter pulley supplied by a supposedly leading boat electrics company. They naturally declined to help after Mastervolt technical help identified the problem. I then fitted a Prestolite 110amp from the local diesel electric suppliers which after a fiddle around with the wiring has done great service for the last 14 years. They are obsolete now or I would buy another one.  I'd be interested to hear of other recommendations.

I use a  ADVERC with a standard alternator, It only ramps up the voltage for short periods once the batteries have reached a given level of charge, so it doesn't make it work any harder.

[nicknorman]

4 minutes ago, Midnight said:

I replaced the Iskra on my Beta 43 after I was told they weren't robust enough for an Adverc. It's still under the bed as a spare. I replaced it initially with a Mastervolt (Bosch) which burned out twice in the following 4 years due to the too large diameter pulley supplied by a supposedly leading boat electrics company. They naturally declined to help after Mastervolt technical help identified the problem. I then fitted a Prestolite 110amp from the local diesel electric suppliers which after a fiddle around with the wiring has done great service for the last 14 years. They are obsolete now or I would buy another one.  I'd be interested to hear of other recommendations.

You’d think that any alternator connected to an external alternator controller that had a temperature sensor, would not be over-exerted. Well I suppose it depends on what temperature the controller starts to reduce the alternator output. Our Iskra alternator is now 11 years old, but only 1 year on Li batteries so it remains to be seen if around 85C max expelled air temperature is too hot for it…

[Midnight]

9 minutes ago, ditchcrawler said:

I use a  ADVERC with a standard alternator, It only ramps up the voltage for short periods once the batteries have reached a given level of charge, so it doesn't make it work any harder.

Oh that's interesting. Probably means the man from the leading boat electrics company slipped me a total micky when he sold me the Mastervolt stuff at Crick show. Ironically the Adverc does very little with the Prestolite. When I enquired at Adverc technical I was told the regulator on the Prestolite is so good the Adverc won't help unless the batteries are below about 70%

Edited April 25, 2022 by Midnight

[nicknorman]

Just now, Midnight said:

Oh that's interesting. Probably means the man from the leading boat electrics company slipped me a total micky when he sold me the Mastervolt stuff at Crick show.

I would say so.

[Midnight]

Thinks!

Based on Ditchcrawler's experience if the Prestolite fails I can refit the 90amp Iskra after unfiddling with the wiring. The original loom is still in place neatly tied up with zippers.

[Sea Dog]

26 minutes ago, Midnight said:

I replaced the Iskra on my Beta 43 after I was told they weren't robust enough for an Adverc.

My 150a Iskra managed 14 years good service without an Adverc and the consumable brush that failed was then a cheap and easy fix. By good service I mean I've had no charging concerns and my first set of cheap SLA batteries lasted 7 years - I'm still using their replacements.

It makes you wonder whether you had sound advice and/or whether you needed an Adverc in the first place, doesn't it?

[Midnight]

14 minutes ago, Sea Dog said:

My 150a Iskra managed 14 years good service without an Adverc and the consumable brush that failed was then a cheap and easy fix. By good service I mean I've had no charging concerns and my first set of cheap SLA batteries lasted 7 years - I'm still using their replacements.

It makes you wonder whether you had sound advice and/or whether you needed an Adverc in the first place, doesn't it?

 

In hindsight (wonderful thing) I was a bit naive 18 years ago. I had the Beta 43 and was fitting out. I visited Crick and bought the batteries. The man from the leading boat electrics company seemed to know his stuff and they offered an alternative to the Adverc. But he said the Iskra would fail within a few months and persuaded me that what was required was the Mastervolt alternator with Alpha-pro. They say "a fool and his money are easily parted" and we were. I'm very pleased with the Prestolite AVI 128 but am confident the Iskra will be fine if needed.

[ditchcrawler]

Just now, ditchcrawler said:

 

[Tony Brooks]

A comment on the Adverc data above.

 

14.4V is around the gassing voltage of lead antimony batteries, lead calcium is around 1.6 to 14.7 so with a modern 14.5V alternator fitting an Adverc may not make much difference. However it will still hide the volt drop caused by split charge diodes and undersized charging cables etc. At one point I understand Beta supplied 14.7V alternators and wrecked a few sealed batteries as a result.n

 

I think the Adverc high voltage may be adjustable but don't know for sure.

 

I think Advecs are the best of alternator advanced controllers  if one is really needed, but that is a personal view. I think Gibbo had a similar view.

[nicknorman]

49 minutes ago, Tony Brooks said:

A comment on the Adverc data above.

 

14.4V is around the gassing voltage of lead antimony batteries, lead calcium is around 1.6 to 14.7 so with a modern 14.5V alternator fitting an Adverc may not make much difference. However it will still hide the volt drop caused by split charge diodes and undersized charging cables etc. At one point I understand Beta supplied 14.7V alternators and wrecked a few sealed batteries as a result.n

 

I think the Adverc high voltage may be adjustable but don't know for sure.

 

I think Advecs are the best of alternator advanced controllers  if one is really needed, but that is a personal view. I think Gibbo had a similar view.

Advercs were ok in their day, which was a long time ago. And it seems odd that if I read the blurb correctly, nothing much happens until the alternator reaches 14v by which time, due to the analogue regulation curve, maximum output current is way down. A modern digital regulator with PID regulation such as the Mastervolt Alpha Pro III or the WS500 is in a different league. Or of course my home made one which just held the current at max (temperature limited) until 14.6v (Trojan batteries) and charged them massively faster without a noticeable increase in water consumption.

[Midnight]

47 minutes ago, nicknorman said:

A modern digital regulator with PID regulation such as the Mastervolt Alpha Pro III or the WS500 is in a different league. 

 

I still have the Alpha Pro it was the only thing that didn't burn out. I liked it because it had lights which showed the state of the charge. If I was a clever electricky person like yourself I would find a use for it. The annoying thing about the Adverc is that it's just a metal box and without checking the MICC it's impossible to know if it's even working. 

 

[Sea Dog]

On 12/04/2022 at 14:03, nicknorman said:

Dirt cheap here from eBay… https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/203194322209?chn=ps&mkevt=1&mkcid=28

 

Now the job is done and proven with the same unit from LRE, I have one of these jobbies at 9 quid winging it's way towards my spares cupboard. Thanks Nick.

 

[nicknorman]

2 minutes ago, Midnight said:

 

I still have the Alpha Pro it was the only thing that didn't burn out. I liked it because it had lights which showed the state of the charge. If I was a clever electricky person like yourself I would find a use for it. The annoying thing about the Adverc is that it's just a metal box and without checking the MICC it's impossible to know if it's even working. 

 

I think the Alpha Pro has been around for a long time, I’m not sure how the old ones worked. The current version is the Alph Pro III which is suspect may be a more modern device with the only similarity being the name. The III looks like this, is that what you had?

 

 

 

[Tony Brooks]

18 minutes ago, Midnight said:

 

I still have the Alpha Pro it was the only thing that didn't burn out. I liked it because it had lights which showed the state of the charge. If I was a clever electricky person like yourself I would find a use for it. The annoying thing about the Adverc is that it's just a metal box and without checking the MICC it's impossible to know if it's even working. 

 

 

Not wholly true. You can see any voltmeter, such as some builders fit in the control panel, jump up and down as the Adverc does its thing and several here have reported that they can hear the engine note change as well. I very much doubt that Alpha Pro can show the state of charge any more accurately than a solar controller. That is unless it is connected to a shunt to measure charging amps as well or they have ripped off Gibbo's voltage maps from the Smartguage. I am sure it will show when it is in bulk charge (not doing anything because it can't) or absorption (when it is elevating the voltage) and possibly when it has timed the elevated voltage out so you are back to the alternator's regulated voltage. None of those indicate the state of charge in any sort of useful way apart from if it is bulk or elevated voltage it is best to keep charging. When timed out of high voltage (if it does) you can guess the batteries are fairly well charged but not their actual state of charge.

 

I liked the simplicity of the Adverc with no fairy lights to bamboozle the unwary apart from the over voltage lamp on mine which is the important warning.

[Midnight]

22 minutes ago, nicknorman said:

I think the Alpha Pro has been around for a long time, I’m not sure how the old ones worked. The current version is the Alph Pro III which is suspect may be a more modern device with the only similarity being the name. The III looks like this, is that what you had?

 

 

 

 Yes it looks a lot like that but is now nearly 20 years old so may be an earlier model I'll check next time I get to the boat.

 

[nicknorman]

56 minutes ago, Tony Brooks said:

 

Not wholly true. You can see any voltmeter, such as some builders fit in the control panel, jump up and down as the Adverc does its thing and several here have reported that they can hear the engine note change as well. I very much doubt that Alpha Pro can show the state of charge any more accurately than a solar controller. That is unless it is connected to a shunt to measure charging amps as well or they have ripped off Gibbo's voltage maps from the Smartguage. I am sure it will show when it is in bulk charge (not doing anything because it can't) or absorption (when it is elevating the voltage) and possibly when it has timed the elevated voltage out so you are back to the alternator's regulated voltage. None of those indicate the state of charge in any sort of useful way apart from if it is bulk or elevated voltage it is best to keep charging. When timed out of high voltage (if it does) you can guess the batteries are fairly well charged but not their actual state of charge.

 

I liked the simplicity of the Adverc with no fairy lights to bamboozle the unwary apart from the over voltage lamp on mine which is the important warning.

As you can see from my picture, the lights don’t actually purport to show the SoC, just the charging phase bulk/absorb/float. As I understand it, it is not like the older controllers such as adverc and Sterling, it totally replaces the inbuilt regulator rather than boosting it. Which at least means it can have a proper float voltage. You can connect them via Masterbus (CANBUS) to some other Mastervolt kit like a Mastershunt, so that the regulator knows what current is going into the battery, SoC etc but even without that, it has a good idea how much current the alternator is chucking out by looking at the data it has available - alternator rpm and field current.
Although it doesn’t seem to have a W connection (unlike mine) so maybe it doesn’t know rpm. Knowing rpm is a good thing because it means that when you first turn on the ignition, it knows the engine isn’t rotating and so just puts a very small field current in (enough to get a W signal) and only applies more field current once it’s rotating at a decent speed, ie less current wasted and less electromechanical drag whilst starting.

[Tony Brooks]

1 hour ago, nicknorman said:

I think the Alpha Pro has been around for a long time, I’m not sure how the old ones worked. The current version is the Alph Pro III which is suspect may be a more modern device with the only similarity being the name. The III looks like this, is that what you had?

 

 

With those connections it can only work in one of two ways. Either take the place of the alternator's own regulator or when the alternator's self regulation has dropped enough to allow it to do something useful short out the alternator's own regulator an elevate the charging voltage. On an older one and even the modern eon my guess would be usually the latter. If that is so then the lamp labeled float can never be a true float voltage be cause the control will be back with the alternator's regulator so say 14.2 to 14.4 + volts. If the former then it is likely to suffer the usual  dropping into float too early if it really does go to a float voltage. That does not sound best to me.

 

Anyway, those lights say very little that is useful state of charge wise.