Better charging

[Captain Gadget]

Here I go again with another post on my modifications.
My problem was my alternator was not charging my battery bank fast enough. If I was down 50 or 60 amp hours, after about 1/2 hour of running the engine, my alternator would drop to about 8 to 10 amps. At this rate it would take a long time to replace the used amps.
My alternator would go to about 13.5 volts and thats it. So, I installed a smart regulator which programmed my alternator into a 3 stage charger. I set the bulk charge rate to 14.6 volts, absorbation to 14.4 and float to 13.5V. Wow. What a difference. The alternator will now push amps into the battery much more faster then settle down to float when near full. Instead of 5 hours or more charging, it will fill up the batteries in 1 hour. Some boaters don't know about this modification, I did not.

Any comments?

 

[Roger Long]

You're new here, aren't you.

Welcome.

 

[rochesterdriver]

Good day Larry,

Interesting setup. Which smart regulator did you install? How did it go?

Thanks,

Rich.

 

[Maine Sail]

You've just discovered that voltage = pressure. 14.6v will charge a LOT faster than 13.5v... Many older alts were set to about 13.6 volts which equates to very slow charging..

 

[Captain Gadget]

I had read past articles on charging systems in this web site and that is where I discovered the smart regulator. The information I got was excellent, I never knew about it before and it sure fit the bill for my boat. I love it. The only problem I had was I first mounted the regulator in the engine compartment, it said it was okay to do this. But, I soon found out that it gets quite hot there and it quit working one time when I was running the motor quite hard. I figured it was hooped. While I was testing various things, I guess it had a chance to cool down and viola, it was back on line. I have since mounted it outside and no problem. Just a lot more charging....
The unit I installed is the Balmar ARS5.

 

[Ron McCoy]

What type of batteries are you using - AGMs, wet-cell, Gel? What are their amp hour ratings, size, and age, etc. Do they get hot with the heavy dose of charge? How do you know when to stop charging?

 

[Captain Gadget]

My house battery bank is composed up of 4 - 6volt deep cycle 235 amp hr wet cells. They are 4 weeks old. There is no heating of the batteries during charging. How do I know when to stop charging?.... Well I don't, I guess, when they reach the bulk voltage the regulator switches to absorption automatically. I can monitor it on my battery monitor readout but otherwise its automatic. After absorption it drops to maintenance.