The Sterling BB241235 DC Powered Smart Charger is perfect for smart charging your house battery bank in a Work Truck, Camper, or van. Doesn’t have the limitations of a traditional relay.
24v input at up to 35 amps and output is 12v at up to 70amps.
Simply connect in between a starting battery and house bank and any time the vehicle’s alternator is running this smart charger will smart charge the output bank.
Preset Charge Profiles and one user customizable battery charging profile available.
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"For those who risk, life has a flavor the protected shall never enjoy"
Victron has a battery balancer for two series
Connected 12v batteries. Lists for $65 on
Amazon and other sources. I would not
Recommend a balancer for any truck with a
Negative cut-off switch.
VinceAtReal4x4s wrote: ↑Fri Dec 02, 2022 2:30 pm
Thanks for the reply but what's the difference between using something like the above 70amp dc-dc convertor on a regular lead-acid battery, and an alternator?
I am not sure I see an answer to this. Yes, I understand the difference between chargers and converters but again we are faced with the issue that the alternator just supplies voltage to a battery.
Back to the charger question, I use amateur radios in " goboxes" and have several LiFePO4 and gel batteries in those as well as just battery boxes as a portable power source. I use the West Mountain Radio Epic PWRgate in those for charging. It is programmed by either jumpers or USB programming for the needed battery chemistry. It has a solar input that will allow me to charge them with 24v. I made a cable that has the amphenol connector for the two 30A ports in the 710K on one end and Anderson Powerpoles to connect to the powergates. This system works well for my purposes.
75 Swiss 710K
Not so new owner but still a novice
W9YG
A PowerGate is an interesting option and has MPPT support.
An alternator will current limit, and that current is a function of RPM. It's really a 3-phase AC generator with a lot of
internal inductance -- rectified at the output of course to make it DC. It is not equivalent to a converter and really is
inferior to a charger for optimal battery life but obviously reasonable for lead-acid. Once the voltage of the battery
reaches the alternator set point it goes low current as the field winding is barley driven. Kinda like a non ideal charger
but gets the job done. It would not be suitable for LFP. There are external "Alternator Regulators" that are programmable
to support most battery types -- they are EXPENSIVE, e.g. Wakespeed's WS500 at $700 -- Yikes.
I think due to the commercial nature of my needs in this case, I'm going to have to go with the very pricey but probably best option.
This is Redarc's 50A charger.
High quality product. I have 2, one 20A the other a fist generation 40A.
One thing to consider -- I am sure you thought about this, at 50A the
input side diven by 24V will be in the ballpark of 25A. Hopefully your
alternator has the oomph to keep up with that.