Another decent alternator regulator finally!

[cheesegas]

Some of you may be aware of this already, but in the big lithium/high power alternator market for charging lithiums, there was really only one choice of regulator, a Wakespeed WS500. Very capable unit with lots of features and excellent Victron integration...but it's expensive at almost £1k including the harness sold separately, and setting it up is painful as anything advanced needs you to Putty into it and send text strings to set parameters! There is an app which generates a text file to send to it, but I've had trouble with it accepting all parameters.

 

Balmar's lithium offerings are all a bit crap as they can only take in battery current data from their own SG200 monitor, and without it, the unit relies on how much field current % is needed to hold the voltage constant to make a stab at the state of charge.

 

Just ordered an Arco Zeus (https://arcomarine.com/products/arco-zeus-high-energy-alternator-regulator) to replace my modified and long suffering Balmar. The interface is via Bluetooth so much easier to set up than both a Balmar or Wakespeed. It's driving a single 200a alternator on a polyvee but with a small engine, so when in gear at idle it needs the field to be brought right down to avoid the engine idling too slow. I have an automatic 'generator' mode in my setup which brings the engine up to 1300rpm and enables full power on the Balmar until the battery is 98% full for maximum charge speed, and if I do something like switch on the washing machine it will bring the engine up to speed again. It's written in NodeRed so hopefully the new regulator will be able to integrate with that too...and yep, there's hard safety interlocks, if the gearbox is knocked into gear whilst in generator mode it will immediately disengage and the revs will drop!

 

The aux GPIO inputs are useful too - at the moment, I have a software switch to disable the alternator in summer as I don't want to waste diesel throwing in 180 amps at 7am when I'm cruising but the solar will fill the batteries by lunchtime anyway... Be nice to have a hardware switch on the engine control panel instead.

 

The Arco can take data from either a 3rd party generic shunt, or from a Cerbo GX via CANbus which is what I'll be doing. Victron have just added it to their official compatibility page too, the list seems to be growing quickly. It would be interesting to see what NodeRed plugins are available for it too.

 

(yep, I know some people will just say it's cheaper to bodge it with a long hot wire but this isn't the market they're aiming at - it's large alternators, big lithium banks with multiple BMSs on CANbus and networked systems with lots of different charge sources)

[IanD]

2 hours ago, cheesegas said:

Some of you may be aware of this already, but in the big lithium/high power alternator market for charging lithiums, there was really only one choice of regulator, a Wakespeed WS500. Very capable unit with lots of features and excellent Victron integration...but it's expensive at almost £1k including the harness sold separately, and setting it up is painful as anything advanced needs you to Putty into it and send text strings to set parameters! There is an app which generates a text file to send to it, but I've had trouble with it accepting all parameters.

 

Balmar's lithium offerings are all a bit crap as they can only take in battery current data from their own SG200 monitor, and without it, the unit relies on how much field current % is needed to hold the voltage constant to make a stab at the state of charge.

 

Just ordered an Arco Zeus (https://arcomarine.com/products/arco-zeus-high-energy-alternator-regulator) to replace my modified and long suffering Balmar. The interface is via Bluetooth so much easier to set up than both a Balmar or Wakespeed. It's driving a single 200a alternator on a polyvee but with a small engine, so when in gear at idle it needs the field to be brought right down to avoid the engine idling too slow. I have an automatic 'generator' mode in my setup which brings the engine up to 1300rpm and enables full power on the Balmar until the battery is 98% full for maximum charge speed, and if I do something like switch on the washing machine it will bring the engine up to speed again. It's written in NodeRed so hopefully the new regulator will be able to integrate with that too...and yep, there's hard safety interlocks, if the gearbox is knocked into gear whilst in generator mode it will immediately disengage and the revs will drop!

 

The aux GPIO inputs are useful too - at the moment, I have a software switch to disable the alternator in summer as I don't want to waste diesel throwing in 180 amps at 7am when I'm cruising but the solar will fill the batteries by lunchtime anyway... Be nice to have a hardware switch on the engine control panel instead.

 

The Arco can take data from either a 3rd party generic shunt, or from a Cerbo GX via CANbus which is what I'll be doing. Victron have just added it to their official compatibility page too, the list seems to be growing quickly. It would be interesting to see what NodeRed plugins are available for it too.

 

(yep, I know some people will just say it's cheaper to bodge it with a long hot wire but this isn't the market they're aiming at - it's large alternators, big lithium banks with multiple BMSs on CANbus and networked systems with lots of different charge sources)

 

The Arco does look like a very good product, at least it's been developed by people who understand the issues -- how much is it in the UK ($800 in the USA!), and who is supplying it?

 

Lots of background and information here...

 

https://marinehowto.com/an-exciting-new-alternator-regulator/

Edited February 10 by IanD

[dmr]

I am very close to getting a Zeus so looks like I'm not going to be the forums first.

It looks very good (very very good?). Force4 are now the UK stockist but its £850. (ouch)

The Wakespeed looked good at first sight but lacks Bluetooth.

The IPhone app does the GUI for the settings but then you have to transfer the output to a PC, possibly edit it, take the cover of the Wakespeed and plug in a USB lead. After using Victron stuff I have got accustomed to real time monitoring and control from my phone and the Zeus does this.               

[PCSB]

Is the Mastervolt Alpha Pro any good, seems to be a lot cheaper at around £350 ish ...

[cheesegas]

1 minute ago, PCSB said:

Is the Mastervolt Alpha Pro any good, seems to be a lot cheaper at around £350 ish ...

It's a good bit of kit but for battery current sensing it needs to be integrated into a Mastervolt system - Mastershunt, battery gauge etc, and you also need a Masterbus to USB box to program it. Being American these systems aren't as common in the UK, and unlike Victron the whole thing is a closed system; Victron have a very actively encouraged DIY community, most of their protocols are covered by publicly accessible whitepapers and they support 3rd party integration. I do like the decentralised system approach of Mastervolt though; rather than relying on a central computer like a Victron GX device, all components of the system share data over a common CANbus backbone.

 

 

3 minutes ago, dmr said:

I am very close to getting a Zeus so looks like I'm not going to be the forums first.           

Realistically it'll be a good few weeks before I get round to fitting it but I'll post a detailed review up here when I do! And yep, the interface is much much better than Wakespeed. I find it easier to use Putty rather than the app, and that's saying something.

 

 

1 hour ago, IanD said:

The Arco does look like a very good product, at least it's been developed by people who understand the issues -- how much is it in the UK ($800 in the USA!), and who is supplying it?

Technical Marine Services - the price is around £200 under what a WS500 costs with the loom.

[IanD]

17 hours ago, cheesegas said:

It's a good bit of kit but for battery current sensing it needs to be integrated into a Mastervolt system - Mastershunt, battery gauge etc, and you also need a Masterbus to USB box to program it. Being American these systems aren't as common in the UK, and unlike Victron the whole thing is a closed system; Victron have a very actively encouraged DIY community, most of their protocols are covered by publicly accessible whitepapers and they support 3rd party integration. I do like the decentralised system approach of Mastervolt though; rather than relying on a central computer like a Victron GX device, all components of the system share data over a common CANbus backbone.

 

 

Realistically it'll be a good few weeks before I get round to fitting it but I'll post a detailed review up here when I do! And yep, the interface is much much better than Wakespeed. I find it easier to use Putty rather than the app, and that's saying something.

 

 

Technical Marine Services - the price is around £200 under what a WS500 costs with the loom.

How much is that then? 😉