I have installed a new battery isolator in our 1979 Dodge class C and we are wondering if we can run the power center's charger and the RV's Engine with the alternator charging the battery's at the same time, We will be running the generator when driving so we can use the roof air, OK with the generator running the power center's charger will be charging the house battery's and the RV Engine's Alternator will be charging them too, Should I hook a battery separator to the house battery's so I can flip the switch when we are driving with power to the RV's power center, I don't want to blow up the Alternator or the power center's charger.
I have a different isolator setup on my coach, but the way I understand it is that when your alternator is charging your chassis batteries the isolator stays closed until they are charged and then opens allowing charge to the house batteries. So if your batteries are all charged the voltage regulator in the alternator should go into non charge mode. I run my generator often while driving down the road to power a/c or furnace or some type of load so looking at it that way the generator will maintain the load that is placed on the system. Hope that helps.
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Fishinghat wrote: Ditto on the light wire. It looks like 16 guage, and 8 or 6 would be much better. The small sized wire will overheat trying to pass enough amperage thru.
Your engine alternator has a voltage regulator that will cut back if it senses the batteries are charged up or another charging source is connected, so that shouldn't be a problem.
Thanks, This is how I thought it worked, I checked the voltage at the Isolator with the engine stopped and the house charger charging and there was no charge going through the Isolator to the start battery so it should be OK, I just did not want to burn up a new house charger or the Alternator, Looks like this setup will work, Thanks for the replies, I will upgrade to larger wire.
If you are planning on using SMARt MODE charging from your RV side Converter then you might want to look into using smart relays/contactors instead of the DIODE based isolators like you have pictured.
The problem is centered around the large DIODEs all have a 0.7 VDC voltage drop across the high current diodes and this will upset your smart mode Battery system monitoring where 12.6VDC, 13.2VDC, 13.6VDC, and 14.4VDC smart mode voltages are concerned. The 0.7 VDC volatge is almost a full volt and the smart voltage converters get mixed up from the get-go.
I have been looking at the different charging schemes recently on how to mix the truck starter motor battery charging and house battery charging systems. "Read up" on the BLUE SEA battery charging sytems - The Marine Boats have these same problems as well... I am really looking at the BLUE SEA SI-ACR SMART RELAY/CONTACTOR BLUE SEA Mdl 7650 system setup for mixing my Truck starter Battery and my House Batteries charging setups.
In my OFF-ROAD POPUP RV trailer setup I am wanting to have a two battery separate battery system mounted in the bed of my truck sharing with the truck starter battery alternator charging system to support my heavy two-way radio usage from my truck ham radio setup. Then I want to be able to switch the two batteries mounted in the truck to parallel my two batteries in the OFF-ROAD POPUP two battery system when needed to extend my camping nights when camping off the power grids. Using the DIODE BASED battery isolators would definatley NOT be a good idea for this septup. I will use the BLUE SEA SI-ACR smart relay and BLUE SEA regular four position battery switches. All cabling will be 4AWG as a miniumun size. May go for 2AWG for the long cable cable run between the Truck and the RV Trailer two conductor cable size.
All of my wiring sizes around my batteries over the years have all been at least a 4AWG size. Not saying you need that large of wire but this is what I always use...
Back in the old JEEP TRAIL days the DIODE BASED Battery isolators were the BOSS thing to have. It looks like today with the smart-mode charging techniques in place the smart relay/contactor may be the smart thing to do and not be hampered with the very large VOLTAGE DROP associated with the DIODE BASED type isolators...
Just me thinking outloud - your RV Truck Class C plans will be more specific on your setup.
My Posts are IMHO based on my experiences - PM me Roy and Carolyn
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Ditto on the light wire. It looks like 16 guage, and 8 or 6 would be much better. The small sized wire will overheat trying to pass enough amperage thru.
Your engine alternator has a voltage regulator that will cut back if it senses the batteries are charged up or another charing source is connected, so that shouldn't be a problem.
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