STERLING ALTERNATOR TO BATTERY CHARGER

[Gibbo]

Ahhh, indeed you are correct.

- HOWEVER, thats what i MENT, which is nearly the same.

Daniel

 

Go back and edit it to what you meant to say.

 

I've noticed that happen a lot on here.

 

Gibbo

[Yoda]

Ahhh, indeed you are correct.

- HOWEVER, thats what i MENT, which is nearly the same.

Daniel

 

Daniel have you started on the juice early?

[chris w]

I'll have what he's smoking

[DHutch]

Hay hay!!

- Im sober as a pillowcase.

- Serously, this time, any other thursday, i'd be well on the way by now.

- HOWEVER, mini-exam tommorrow moring at 9.00 means im staying in on a thurday for once.

 

 

Daniel

[ChrisPy]

typical 2nd year student.

 

it used to be Friday and Saturday nights.

now Thursday is added to the equation.

soon you'll find there really isn't enough time left during the week to attend lectures, after doing all the essential things in life....

[JohnO]

I have been living onboard for about a year now and want to see if I can improve my battery charging system. I have been looking at the Sterling alternator to battery charging system which claims to charge your batteries faster and puts more power into them. Has anyone got one of these fitted as a added extra, has anyone fitted one, how difficult is it (I have no idea about electrics), How would this fit into my present electrics (listed below), they are quite expensive so I dont want to take the plunge without trying to get a bit more info on them. Please try and make any replies as simple as possible - thanks

System - 4 x 110a leisure batts, 1 x 110a starter batt, 2 x 80a alternators, victron phoenix multi plus charger/inverter 2500va 120amp.

 

thanks again.

 

 

Hi Whammy, i have fitted the Sterling alternator to battery charging system. I believe the claim they charge your batteries faster. I found the unit very easy to install. The only issue most people are not aware of is the alternator needs to reach a certain output before the digital amplifer will produce the managed faster charge SO unless you are cruising there will be no gain.

btw Chris W get your Clamp meter out and see !

[DHutch]

Typical 2nd year student.

- It used to be Friday and Saturday nights.

- Now Thursday is added to the equation.

No, last year it was some wednesdays. most thursdays, and a fair few fridays

- This year its most tuesdays, most thurdays, and the occational friday or saterday.

 

 

Daniel

[Philip Davies]

Hi, I have just seen this topic.

 

I have just completed 600 hours running in my first boating season.

 

I have a Shire 45 fitted with 50A and 110A alternators, together with a Travel Pack 240V AC alternator. There are four 120AH domestic batteries.

 

The 50A alternator charges both the starter and bowthruster batteries through a split charging relay.

 

I have a Mastervolt Mass Inverter Charger Control Panel that monitors the voltages of both the starter and domestics banks. There is a shunt in the domestic circuit that measures the current out of or into the domestic bank. This panel can compute total power in/out and therefore capacity of the domestic batteries at that point.

 

All seems to work very well.

 

My questions/comments to those with knowledge/experience.

 

1. When I start the engine, I have to blip the throttle to about 1,500 rpm to get the warning light to go out and to get the rpm meter to work. I was told this was to excite the alternator. I only have to do this on starting. Is this normal?

 

2. After 300 hours, the 110A alternator belt broke. Fortunately, I was carrying a spare. I have been told that this is indicative of a problem. I can't find anything physically wrong with the set up. Ideas?

 

3. Initially, the domestic alternator seems to put about 80A max into a 70% capacity bank. This soon drops off to only 10A when the bank has only 80% capacity. I also have a Mastervolt 12/80 battery charger fitted. When we are underway, I turn on the Travel Power and the battery charger. Maximum input to the domestic bank rises to 100A or so. Eventually, the battery charger goes into float stage applying an input 5A or so. After 4-5 hours cruising I get 100% capacity. Is there anything wrong with this mode of operation?

 

4. I shall not ask if I would benifit from an external alternator control. Barrus used to recommend a Mastervolt system. I presume by using my mains charger I am effectively doing this.

 

5. My simple understanding of physics is that if you are using alternators to their full capacity, you are putting strain on the engine and hence burning fuel. Energy is not wasted by free loading an alternator (except resistance from bearings/pulleys).

 

Regards

[GUMPY]

1. When I start the engine, I have to blip the throttle to about 1,500 rpm to get the warning light to go out and to get the rpm meter to work. I was told this was to excite the alternator. I only have to do this on starting. Is this normal?

 

I had a similar problem with a Nanni the value of the warning light was wrong so that the alternator wouldnt excite. Unfortunately the correct value wouldnt fit in the holder supplied....

So I took a 5 watt resistor and added it in parrallel with the lamp this caused the alternator to excite as soon as the engine started at tickover. Cant remember the value, it was 9 years ago, someone out there will calculate the correct value.

[Guest]

Hi, I have just seen this topic.

 

I have just completed 600 hours running in my first boating season.

 

I have a Shire 45 fitted with 50A and 110A alternators, together with a Travel Pack 240V AC alternator. There are four 120AH domestic batteries.

 

The 50A alternator charges both the starter and bowthruster batteries through a split charging relay.

 

I have a Mastervolt Mass Inverter Charger Control Panel that monitors the voltages of both the starter and domestics banks. There is a shunt in the domestic circuit that measures the current out of or into the domestic bank. This panel can compute total power in/out and therefore capacity of the domestic batteries at that point.

 

All seems to work very well.

 

My questions/comments to those with knowledge/experience.

 

1. When I start the engine, I have to blip the throttle to about 1,500 rpm to get the warning light to go out and to get the rpm meter to work. I was told this was to excite the alternator. I only have to do this on starting. Is this normal?

 

2. After 300 hours, the 110A alternator belt broke. Fortunately, I was carrying a spare. I have been told that this is indicative of a problem. I can't find anything physically wrong with the set up. Ideas?

 

3. Initially, the domestic alternator seems to put about 80A max into a 70% capacity bank. This soon drops off to only 10A when the bank has only 80% capacity. I also have a Mastervolt 12/80 battery charger fitted. When we are underway, I turn on the Travel Power and the battery charger. Maximum input to the domestic bank rises to 100A or so. Eventually, the battery charger goes into float stage applying an input 5A or so. After 4-5 hours cruising I get 100% capacity. Is there anything wrong with this mode of operation?

 

4. I shall not ask if I would benifit from an external alternator control. Barrus used to recommend a Mastervolt system. I presume by using my mains charger I am effectively doing this.

 

5. My simple understanding of physics is that if you are using alternators to their full capacity, you are putting strain on the engine and hence burning fuel. Energy is not wasted by free loading an alternator (except resistance from bearings/pulleys).

 

Regards

1) Our Vetus needs to be blipped to get charging. It has been like that from new and I never bother about it.

 

2) There is another thread going about broken belts ("I need a belt" or similar). I don't believe that the belts fitted are up to the job. Our Vetus is a belt shredder (90amp alt).

 

3) I always find I can top up the batteries more with the mains charger, than the alternator will ever put in (no additional regulator fitted). Can't say if your mode of charging with travel power is OK or not 'cause I don't know.

 

4) Don't go there!

 

5) The more you load the alternator the more fuel you will use. My mates wagon uses more fuel at night, when running with its many lights on. You don't get free 'lecky from an engine.

[Lesd]

This is an interesting thread. The boat I have on order will have twin alternators, one of which will be rated at 160A.....i'm starting to worry about the belts and how long they will last with such a large alternator. Email to Barrus coming on I think....

Les

[chris w]

[altenator controllers]..Don't go there!

 

Why not Catweasel?

 

Philip:

 

The fact your batteries are not charging fully via the alternator regulator is the very reason that I always argue that alternator controllers do a fantastic job. Charging to only around 80% is very typical of an alternator regulator.

 

However, having said that, the fact you have a 240v alternator which allows you to run your Mastervolt charger is in fact achieving the same thing by an alternative route. The Mastervolt will be using the same algorithms to charge as does an alternator controller.

 

So, in your case, you don't need an alternator controller as you are getting 100% charge via the 240v mastervolt, but, in general without a 240v alternator, I always advocate an alternator controller.

 

Chris

 

 

Forgot to say that if you need to blip the engine to get the charge light to go out then there is not enough current going through the light to energise the field coil in the alternator. Typically you need about 100mA or so to get the alternator to self-start.

 

This means the light is not the correct one, or maybe someone has wired a resistor in series with it which would be totally wrong. If you wire a 100 ohm 2W resistor across the lamp, the alternator should now self-start correctly. Check this resistor really does go from the 12v ignition line to the D2 connector on the back of the alternator

 

The reason the blip works, is that there is always some residual magnetism in an alternator and the high rev blip generates sufficient initial field coil current,using this residual magnetism, to switch the alternator on.

 

Chris

[Gibbo]

Hi, I have just seen this topic.

 

I have just completed 600 hours running in my first boating season.

 

I have a Shire 45 fitted with 50A and 110A alternators, together with a Travel Pack 240V AC alternator. There are four 120AH domestic batteries.

 

The 50A alternator charges both the starter and bowthruster batteries through a split charging relay.

 

I have a Mastervolt Mass Inverter Charger Control Panel that monitors the voltages of both the starter and domestics banks. There is a shunt in the domestic circuit that measures the current out of or into the domestic bank. This panel can compute total power in/out and therefore capacity of the domestic batteries at that point.

 

All seems to work very well.

 

My questions/comments to those with knowledge/experience.

 

1. When I start the engine, I have to blip the throttle to about 1,500 rpm to get the warning light to go out and to get the rpm meter to work. I was told this was to excite the alternator. I only have to do this on starting. Is this normal?

 

Either the charge warning light is too small (this is very common on shire engine/panel combinations) or the split charge relay has been wired to this alternator and the coil on the relay is robbing the regulator of it's excitation current. INcrease the size of the warning lamp, or put another one in parallel with it.

 

2. After 300 hours, the 110A alternator belt broke. Fortunately, I was carrying a spare. I have been told that this is indicative of a problem. I can't find anything physically wrong with the set up. Ideas?

 

Single V-belt? Really pushing it on a 100 amp alternator.

 

3. Initially, the domestic alternator seems to put about 80A max into a 70% capacity bank. This soon drops off to only 10A when the bank has only 80% capacity.

 

Measure the voltage when the charge current starts to decrease. This will give an idication of the alternator regulator voltage. It may be that the regulator voltage is too low.

 

I also have a Mastervolt 12/80 battery charger fitted. When we are underway, I turn on the Travel Power and the battery charger. Maximum input to the domestic bank rises to 100A or so. Eventually, the battery charger goes into float stage applying an input 5A or so. After 4-5 hours cruising I get 100% capacity. Is there anything wrong with this mode of operation?

 

No

 

4. I shall not ask if I would benifit from an external alternator control. Barrus used to recommend a Mastervolt system. I presume by using my mains charger I am effectively doing this.

 

Correct

 

5. My simple understanding of physics is that if you are using alternators to their full capacity, you are putting strain on the engine and hence burning fuel. Energy is not wasted by free loading an alternator (except resistance from bearings/pulleys).

 

Regards

 

Well you don't get something for nothing. Both alternators are there with the belts wasting power whether you use them or not. It makes no difference where the power comes from. The same amount of power will use the same amounf of fuel. When the alternators are worling hard, you will of course use more fuel. I think I am agreeing with you. I can't actually understand what you wrote.

 

Gibbo

Edited November 20, 2006 by Gibbo

[Guest]

Why not Catweasel?

 

I have nothing against them, a good friend has an external reg. and has seen a big improvement. My comment was aimed at not starting another argument about these highly emotive items!

[Philip Davies]

Thanks all.

 

I shall try putting a resistor across the bulb. I am not happy blipping a cold engine where all the oil has drained down into the sump.

 

Yes, the warning light and RPM meter seem to be connected to the 50A alternator which is connected to the split charging relay. The 110A alternator has a seperate warning light within the RPM meter that came on when my fanbelt broke.

 

Cheers

[Lesd]

This is an interesting thread. The boat I have on order will have twin alternators, one of which will be rated at 160A.....i'm starting to worry about the belts and how long they will last with such a large alternator. Email to Barrus coming on I think....

Les

 

 

I had a email back from Barus, it went along the lines of.....''our R&D team state a conservative life for the belt on the 160A alternator on the Shire 65 is 2,000 hours of use.... We have had NO early failures on the product to date''..... somewhat reassuring but we'll see. Aparantly a spare would cost me £15.

Les

[TeeELL]

I've decided not to persue the Stirling gizmo so nb 'ELEMIAH' will retain the - oh so simple - starter battery from one alternator, domestic bank from the other.

[nbtafelberg]

Yeah, ditto.

- Why over complicate it, a larger alternator will give out greater charge, and proberbly cost less, escpically as you can then sell the old one.

Daniel

 

I got a sterling controller on mine with 6 leeasures and 1 starter, works great.