Is 1ah load to small to hunt down?

[68camaro]

I was just thinking about having two chargers in parallel, wasn't really considering the B2B off the alternator part.

I actually have an upgraded 200 Amp alternator and a Sterling Power B2B charger, the "Pro Batt Ultra" BB1260, 60 Amp 12volt charger, with the optional Remote Control / Display.

URL for it is
https://www.sterling-power-usa.com/Ster ... arger.aspx

Thanks all. My math at 0% SOC was to make it easy, manufacture has BMS that cuts off battery at 10.5%, so worst case charge time is at 8.95 hrs, give or take.

Two 30 amp Orion's TR Smart DC/DC chargers in parallel theoretically will give comparable results as the 60 amp sterling, but since Sterling is single unit, it is cleaner easier install. I already bought and installed Orion so I can't reverse course. Getting second Orion might make sense.

Our stock alternator is 130 amp so I believe two 30 amp DC/DC chargers in parallel will let 60 amps through. My Power Control box under sink is 30 amp also but I can upgrade to 45 amp if I wish. I might look for 60 amp upgrade, I think Parallex has 60 amp unit, but not sure if easy swap with Boonedockers.

I have a few fishing trips planned starting late Sept. so I'll see how it goes to determine if I want the second Orion or not and report back on how things are working.

[BobW9]

Our stock alternator is 130 amp so I believe two 30 amp DC/DC chargers in parallel will let 60 amps through. My Power Control box under sink is 30 amp also but I can upgrade to 45 amp if I wish. I might look for 60 amp upgrade, I think Parallex has 60 amp unit, but not sure if easy swap with Boonedockers.

Like Scott indicated, I'm not sure how good an idea it is to be pulling 60 amps constant for hours from the stock 130 amp alternator. When running, I imagine the alternator is probably being used to the tune of 30 amps at least, just running the vehicle. Quite a bit more gets pulled when you open/close windows and such. And alternators are spec'd showing 'max', not what they can run at constantly. I think it will work, but that alternator may burn out sooner than you might like, especially driving around in the summer.

Of course, so long as it isn't during a road trip in the middle of nowhere, no biggie - I'd just get a larger model when it does. I did mine proactively when the engine was almost in pieces during spark plug changes, and the mechanics didn't charge hardly any extra labor.

I did originally have a Sterling 50A B2B when I had two 100Ah lead acid batteries (had to swap it when I upgraded to lithium because it was a model that couldn't handle lithium). That worked fine with the 130A alternator, but it generally started at 35-40 amps and then settled soon at maybe 25-30 amps charging, because of my small bank, and being lead acid, and never being much below maybe 50 amps down.

[Scott]

Camaro,
I promise you I'm asking this with the friendliest tone possible: Do you need all this charging power? For a single person going on weekend trips, 300ah of LFP seems like a very healthy bank, especially if you have a gas fridge (assumption on the fridge). I'm asking because the DC-DC alternator setup seems to be a large consideration in your system design. I would think after topping up the batteries on shore and then hitting the road the next day, you'd be fine for a decent length trip. Maybe forego the risk and complication of alternator charging for now and see how you get along. I've always just relied on solar and made do with less power when it's cloudy. And I have an electric fridge, to boot. I've used a little generator in the worst cases but that has happened very few times. With a big AC charger, you can get a good amount of juice put back into your LFPs with only a couple hours of generator run time and virtually zero risk. As Bob mentioned, if you have the front of the engine taken apart already, then a higher rated alternator drops right in and it's a no-brainer, but I wouldn't do it simply for DC-DC charging when you have LFP. I'd rather just run the generator for a little while if needed. LFP is nothing like the old, agonizingly slow lead acid batteries that took forever and needed to be topped up.
FWIW, I use a 300ah LFP bank to back up my home, and our power goes out constantly.

[68camaro]

Our stock alternator is 130 amp so I believe two 30 amp DC/DC chargers in parallel will let 60 amps through. My Power Control box under sink is 30 amp also but I can upgrade to 45 amp if I wish. I might look for 60 amp upgrade, I think Parallex has 60 amp unit, but not sure if easy swap with Boonedockers.

Like Scott indicated, I'm not sure how good an idea it is to be pulling 60 amps constant for hours from the stock 130 amp alternator. When running, I imagine the alternator is probably being used to the tune of 30 amps at least, just running the vehicle. Quite a bit more gets pulled when you open/close windows and such. And alternators are spec'd showing 'max', not what they can run at constantly. I think it will work, but that alternator may burn out sooner than you might like, especially driving around in the summer.

Of course, so long as it isn't during a road trip in the middle of nowhere, no biggie - I'd just get a larger model when it does. I did mine proactively when the engine was almost in pieces during spark plug changes, and the mechanics didn't charge hardly any extra labor.

I've toyed with upgrading alternator and even putting a second one in, you points are well taken. I'll see how trips go before deciding if I even need it.

Camaro,
I promise you I'm asking this with the friendliest tone possible: Do you need all this charging power? For a single person going on weekend trips, 300ah of LFP seems like a very healthy bank, especially if you have a gas fridge (assumption on the fridge). I'm asking because the DC-DC alternator setup seems to be a large consideration in your system design. I would think after topping up the batteries on shore and then hitting the road the next day, you'd be fine for a decent length trip. Maybe forego the risk and complication of alternator charging for now and see how you get along. I've always just relied on solar and made do with less power when it's cloudy. And I have an electric fridge, to boot. I've used a little generator in the worst cases but that has happened very few times. With a big AC charger, you can get a good amount of juice put back into your LFPs with only a couple hours of generator run time and virtually zero risk. As Bob mentioned, if you have the front of the engine taken apart already, then a higher rated alternator drops right in and it's a no-brainer, but I wouldn't do it simply for DC-DC charging when you have LFP. I'd rather just run the generator for a little while if needed. LFP is nothing like the old, agonizingly slow lead acid batteries that took forever and needed to be topped up.
FWIW, I use a 300ah LFP bank to back up my home, and our power goes out constantly.

Scott, your help and others is appreciated. I am trying to figure this out and everyones a big help.

Here are my calculations of energy usage, I use my rig more in winter than summer for cold weather fishing trips. In winter I get little solar due to canopy in forested areas I park and general gray sky's. I fish most all day and only use rig from like 6 at night to 8 - 9 am in morning, so 14 hours a day say. In Northeast or even mid-atlantic mountain, winter temps get very cold....and I loooove waking up to a warm camper to get ready for day. I usually keep thermastat at 68 which is plenty warm.

Furnace 3.5 amp hours or 588 watt hrs @ 14 hours, I know furnace cycles so this is extreme worst case scenario.
3-way Fridge .85 amp hours or 244 watt hrs @ 24 hrs
LP/Carbon monoxide detectors .7 amp hrs or 201 watt hrs @ 24 hours
2 led lights .5 amp hrs or 36 watt hrs @ 6 hrs gets dark early in winter
Waterpump 5 amp hrs or 60 watt hrs @ 1 hr

This gives me 1,129 watt hours used in 24 hours or roughly 35% of usable battery storage in one day. Of course I can put in store mode when outside of rig to cut down on the fridge and detectors. For a long weekend this should be adequate, but for longer I will need to recharge from Alternator or Generator, and my AC/DC charger is only 30 amp also so wouldn't it take as long as alternator to charge?

Does my math above seem right or am I missing something.

Also, I am about to upgrade my coach stereo to one that has Apple Play so I can use coach speakers and I am unsure what the amp and watt draw per hour will be.

[chin_k]

How about timer for your thermostat, so you don't need to heat your rig when you are not even in there? Just turn it on like 30 minutes before you get back? It is relatively fast to heat up due to the small size, but if you keep the heat on all day, it is a real waste. The LP alarm is also going to be useless if there is no one around to hear it. As for the fridge, if you are fishing in the winter, it is very likely that by keeping the door closed still going to keep everything frozen for hours or even almost half a day. One thing to keep in mind before you got carried away is that lithium battery has temperature requirement, so you may need electric blanket for your batteries, or keep it at the minimum temperature.

I also think that you are going to kill your alternator by putting so much load on it. Better off running generator and fast charge it if you really need the extra juice in the battery... or you pull out your genset already?

For the dual-charger setup, I suggest that you contact the Orion to make sure they recommend the setup. My limited understanding of power supply circuit is that you can't simply connect two chargers like that due to the interaction between them. They are not batteries that you can stalk together and get double the current. The circuit is both measure the voltage and adjust the current. Orion need to build their circuit to handle that, and I doubt that it is the case since the right way is to get a single larger charger.

Do a test run on your driveway and see if setup is good enough. The worse thing is that you came back with a low battery, and need to idle your engine to charge up your battery for the next day. It will probably going to save you fuel in the long run, since with the extra load on your alternator, you are putting more work on your engine, and use more fuel when you are driving.

[Scott]

Ah, you do use a good bit of energy. It's sort of a bummer that a gas fridge uses that much power .

Barring extreme conditions, drawing from LFP in the cold is OK. Charging in the cold can cause damage. I think your batteries have built in heaters? The internal heater you'll find in some batteries is there to warm it up just enough to allow it to safely take in power (it's really more of a safety feature). Even though LFPs are much lighter than lead batteries, they're still quite massive and require long, sustained low temps to really get cold enough to cause problems in storage. From your description, you very well could find yourself in such circumstances, which might warrant storing them inside because LFP battery capacity can be radically reduced when they're cold.

I guess my original point was to express that LFP and lead acid behave completely differently, and it takes some adjusting to reframe our thinking. WIth lead acid, they charge very slowly and steadily, then have a super long absorption, plus they really need to be charged fully. That all kind of sucks, but it makes a regular alternator a good charging method while driving for many hours. It also means running the generator forever if that's the alternative. LFP on the other hand, the alternator makes less sense. The battery gobbles up so much power that you need a DC-DC unit to throttle it back to preserve the alternator, and the alternator happens to be a very important component in our case since it's a single point of failure, and it's not easy to replace if you're stranded. So with LFP, a small generator and AC charger, you can fire hose all that power for just a couple hours and take care of your daily needs. I mean, if you're going to use the V10 and alternator to idle charge at camp (highly not recommended), then wouldn't you rather just use a portable generator on a 100ft extension cord? All of this presumes that solar is out of the question and you're remotely boondocking.

I'll add that while camping, personally I'm not a fan of running a generator, or hearing others'. But if it's only a couple hours in the middle of the day, and you can't use solar, then it's better than running the chassis engine.

[68camaro]

How about timer for your thermostat, so you don't need to heat your rig when you are not even in there? Just turn it on like 30 minutes before you get back? It is relatively fast to heat up due to the small size, but if you keep the heat on all day, it is a real waste. The LP alarm is also going to be useless if there is no one around to hear it. As for the fridge, if you are fishing in the winter, it is very likely that by keeping the door closed still going to keep everything frozen for hours or even almost half a day. One thing to keep in mind before you got carried away is that lithium battery has temperature requirement, so you may need electric blanket for your batteries, or keep it at the minimum temperature.

I also think that you are going to kill your alternator by putting so much load on it. Better off running generator and fast charge it if you really need the extra juice in the battery... or you pull out your genset already?

For the dual-charger setup, I suggest that you contact the Orion to make sure they recommend the setup. My limited understanding of power supply circuit is that you can't simply connect two chargers like that due to the interaction between them. They are not batteries that you can stalk together and get double the current. The circuit is both measure the voltage and adjust the current. Orion need to build their circuit to handle that, and I doubt that it is the case since the right way is to get a single larger charger.

Do a test run on your driveway and see if setup is good enough. The worse thing is that you came back with a low battery, and need to idle your engine to charge up your battery for the next day. It will probably going to save you fuel in the long run, since with the extra load on your alternator, you are putting more work on your engine, and use more fuel when you are driving.

Chin, I never thought about thermostat timer, I did get new one so wonder if it has a built in timer? I'll be checking.

Based on lots of advice here, I think I will leave alternator alone and use what I have to see how it goes. The Orion TR Smart Charger can be run in parallel per Orion, so this is option down the road.

Ah, you do use a good bit of energy. It's sort of a bummer that a gas fridge uses that much power .

Barring extreme conditions, drawing from LFP in the cold is OK. Charging in the cold can cause damage. I think your batteries have built in heaters? The internal heater you'll find in some batteries is there to warm it up just enough to allow it to safely take in power (it's really more of a safety feature). Even though LFPs are much lighter than lead batteries, they're still quite massive and require long, sustained low temps to really get cold enough to cause problems in storage. From your description, you very well could find yourself in such circumstances, which might warrant storing them inside because LFP battery capacity can be radically reduced when they're cold.

I guess my original point was to express that LFP and lead acid behave completely differently, and it takes some adjusting to reframe our thinking. WIth lead acid, they charge very slowly and steadily, then have a super long absorption, plus they really need to be charged fully. That all kind of sucks, but it makes a regular alternator a good charging method while driving for many hours. It also means running the generator forever if that's the alternative. LFP on the other hand, the alternator makes less sense. The battery gobbles up so much power that you need a DC-DC unit to throttle it back to preserve the alternator, and the alternator happens to be a very important component in our case since it's a single point of failure, and it's not easy to replace if you're stranded. So with LFP, a small generator and AC charger, you can fire hose all that power for just a couple hours and take care of your daily needs. I mean, if you're going to use the V10 and alternator to idle charge at camp (highly not recommended), then wouldn't you rather just use a portable generator on a 100ft extension cord? All of this presumes that solar is out of the question and you're remotely boondocking.

I'll add that while camping, personally I'm not a fan of running a generator, or hearing others'. But if it's only a couple hours in the middle of the day, and you can't use solar, then it's better than running the chassis engine.

I think I do use a lot in winter due to furnace, the other three seasons are totally different, especially summer. I should be able to conserve more watts in winter with better conservation so we'll see. I also do not not like running generator due to disrupting the peace and quiet of others or my own enjoyment of secluded spot, but sometimes it os necessary.

My batteries do have internal heater and BMS so I am excited to test out this winter to see how they work.

I certainly don't want to burn out alternator so I'll pass putting extra stress or making changes until I see how current set-up works.

But now for something totally different:

I just discovered my camper Kenwood radio only runs off of the engine battery and not the camper batteries, is this normal? This is probably the parasitic load that caused me to put a kill switch on my engine battery. My TV works off the camper batteries and pulls 4.0ah or 48wh, but for some reason the radio is tied into engine battery, not sure why this makes sense.

[chin_k]

You may want to start a separate thread...
Anyway, for the radio, if the Kenwood is part of the chassis, then it would make perfect sense to run it off the chassis battery. You maybe able to rewire it to run on which ever source you like, but the radio has been the culprit for many who discovered to be the one that drained the chassis battery and need to jump start the engine or use BOOST button.

[68camaro]

New thread started for radio issue:

https://www.chinookrvforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=2609