Your Vehicles voltage regulator

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In my search for cheap-but-good external reg, I've come across a few with manual adjust dials. Most right on the unit, designed for only occasional use, but some have the remote setup with a dial to go on the dash.

The only one that looked any good to me was well over a hundred bucks, but looks like I might have to spend as much on this piece as I got the alt for!
 
Is this blue potentiometer you cut up the same as the one on the Meanwell 500?
I would like to use the cutting  technique to add a pot to my Meanwell without 
disassembling  the case
Thanks
 
Mobilesport said:
Is this blue potentiometer you cut up the same as the one on the Meanwell 500?
I would like to use the cutting  technique to add a pot to my Meanwell without 
disassembling  the case
Thanks

Not quite the same.

The transpo potentiometer had 3 inline legs
This one shows triangle legs though:

http://www.bourns.com/docs/Product-Datasheets/3386.pdf?sfvrsn=5



The Meanwell potentiometer  was slightly smaller and has 3 legs in a triangle pattern.

http://www.bourns.com/docs/Product-Datasheets/3309.pdf?sfvrsn=3
 
After rereading this thread ,That really is a amazing  awesome mod .
With this mod comboed with your solar panel I would think that you would 
have charging taken care of.
 
Actually most people wouldn't want to manually adjust voltage output on the fly, I'm forgetful enough I'd be afraid of damaging an expensive bank, get a DCDC charger instead

If it's only for the Starter I guess less downside.

Very cool hack just for its own cool factor sake though!
 
When you know where your battery is, all one does is choose one of 2 voltages.
For my current AGM battery,

14.7 when not fully charged
13.6 when fully charged

When is it fully charged, amps at 14.7v, taper to 0.45 or less.

If amps into battery at 14.7v fall below 0.45v, spin dial downward to 13.6v.... or not, but unless driving throut the desert in summer, not much of a consequence.

Is the battery hot... Probably.... well perhaps 14.1v.

Grab dial, rotate counter clockwise slowly.


Rocket science!!!!!!!


Adjust for battery temperature.
Hot battery, a few less tenths....
COld battery, well more volts would recharge the battery better/faster while you drive.






Get an Ammeter. See how many amps flow at that voltage, in or out.

When a voltmeter and an ampmeter are on one's dashboard, and one gets to control electrical pressure at the simple turn of a dial, and thus the flow of recharging current into a battery, depleted or not, One laughs that one would go through the effort and expense of setting up somethign automatic which is supposed to be able to do it better or more accurately, when those parameters require adjustment as the battery ages and it is discharged to different levels each recharge..

And how the battery ages is directly realted to ones ability to recharge the dang lead acid battery to a true full 100% recharge, if not every discharge cycle, at least every 5, or 7 ....or 12, or 22, Or WTF does it matter?......, when the batteries doen't hold enough juice overnight anymore, replace them.

The more often they are returned to a true 100% full charge, the longer they last.
You want a reliable lead acid battery system, at least be able to occassionally reach that true 100% recharge. It might take 20 hours of charging after a lot of partial state of charge cycling. and very little actually gets stuffed in in those last 12 hours but it is so important to the battery..

But if the battery never gets it... well coitus interruptus happens to batteries too.

Stap charging your heavily worked battery at 98% SOC , when 100% is right there, so close.... not a starving battery, not a soon to die battery, but a battery that had the chance to achieve batterygasm, but was denied, for no good reason, other than some 'automatic/Smart" charging source, thought that too much pleasure is a bad thing, and needs to be avoided.










Automatic sources cant seem to handle that, properly, Ideally, without spending hundreds

YOur vehicle's voltage regulator has no Idea, that you are trying to recharge a secondary depleted battery tacked onto the end of the charging circuit.

When it chooses 13.7 when your abused and thirsty battery is depleted, and you are highway driving, a crime is occurring.

But at 14.7v, the battery is sucking up as much as it can and happily doing so. Unless it is 120F, then one wants to limit voltage to something lower.

Ohhh temperature, another variable for something automatic to ignore misread, misinterpret and screw up.

But ....wait.... my battery is already 100F and warming rapidly, but hours away from being fully charged and I have to use my laptop for 8 hours after stuffing my fridge with warm beer I got that insane deal on, well perhaps 14.3v is a wiser absorption voltage to choose. Perhaps less.

This VR mod is certainly not necessary, but please do not think spinning the voltage dial when a giant digital voltage display is yelling out from the dashboard, is something beyond the skill of somebody who can successfully drive a vehicle down a road.

But the voltmeter and the Ammeter, and a thermometer too!

Egads why isnt everything perfectly automatic so I do not have to spin a dial nor use my brain!

https://www.amazon.com/HDE-Non-Cont..._9?s=industrial&ie=UTF8&qid=1486199233&sr=1-9
 
Shouldn't everyone that's charging from alternator do this mod?
I know my alternator on my Express van doesn't put out anywhere near 14.8 volts , alot of times it's 13.5 volts.
I don't  drive that much and so it doesn't really bother me but I hear alot of
people talking about hooking up solonoids but nothing about increasing the output.
 
Mobilesport said:
Shouldn't everyone that's charging from alternator do this mod?
I know my alternator on my Express van doesn't put out anywhere near 14.8 volts , alot of times it's 13.5 volts.
I don't  drive that much and so it doesn't really bother me but I hear alot of
people talking about hooking up solonoids but nothing about increasing the output.

I think it wise people charging from alternator at least realize what voltage their regulator is seeking,and when, and for how long, and not simply think that the alternator is always charging the battery at the limit of its acceptance.

But there certainly is bliss in ignorance.  It took a voltmeer on my dashboard to realize the extent of bat crap crazy my engine computer's voltage regulator achieved.

Many voltage regulators are internal to the alternator, and adapting these to external regulation is more entailed than my modification of simply tricking my engine computer with  a 10 ohm 50 watt resistor and using an external adjustable voltage regulator.

I've not really spent much time  inside alternators and do not know how difficult it would be to modify it for external voltage regulation.

http://www.pbase.com/mainecruising/alternator_conversion

This thread shows how to do it on a 1988 to 2003 dodge van.  Other vehicles/ brands will have other considerations
 
When i rigged up my Hall effect ammeter's sensor on the alternator (+) output cable, I disconnected a ring terminal and slid the sensor over my direct doubled 6awg feed from my alternator, to this 140 amp circuit breaker, and then reattached:


31Jz%2BY89HoL.jpg


https://www.amazon.com/Absolute-CIB140-140-Circuit-Breaker/dp/B002Y2MNK2

This circuit breaker feeds the common stud on my blueseas 6007m 1/2/Both/Off Switch.

To this same stud goes the original (+) battery post clamp via a 2AWG extension. It is A parallel alternator charging circuit.

To get the ammeter to display total alternator current, I disconnected the original alternator to battery 6awg cable, so all current was forced to flow through cable with sensor on it.

Today  Rainy all day , 90AH battery is 57AH from full when I start engine, and it is making 74 amps total, with the battery sucking up 66 of that.  More rpms cause belt to slip, so I lower voltage a few twists until belt stops slipping and squealing.  Have to use headlights so 120 amps alternator was making between 70 and 95 amps according to my ammeter as I drove, and I had to lower target voltage a few times to get belt to stop squealing when accellerating.  

Once my engine started making some heat, I turned on the Hvac fan on high for another ~18 amps of load. Digital ammeter was showing ---  meaning it was over 100 amps, then it went to 0.00amps and battery voltage fell to 12.0v.

My low quality "140 amp" circuit breaker had tripped after less than 5 minutes of 70 to 90 amps, and then once I pushed it to ~110 amps with the Hvac blower motor, depleted battery and headlights( and stereo,) it popped.

Thankfully this did not blow the diodes in the alternator , or anything else, as it is basically a load dump and exactly what one does not want to occur.

So this is a rant against crappy products.  This 140 amp CB should never have tripped at 110 amps, and it could have taken out my alternator, and I am very surprised it did not.

So, I relocated my ammeter's hall effect sensor over to a battery cable, to read amps into or out of the battery, instead of total alternator current, and hooked back up the original alternator parallel charge circuit Which will reduce load on cheesy circuit breaker..

All is well, Except I foolishly used a sub par product I bought because of the low price before I really knew better.

Also my doubled 6AWG jumper cables are not ideal, and have been there 10 years

But by buying the Cheesy CB linked above, I saved 12$ over buying the Quality Bussman Circuit breaker I should have bought:

https://www.amazon.com/Bussmann-Hi-...kmr1&keywords=bussman+140+amp+circuit+breaker

And it could have cost me an alternator.

Looking forward to upgrading my cabling and components with quality instead of bargain/free  junk.

With new sensor location, tonight, after driving back to my spot, at 14.7v battery was accepting 29.2 amps from alternator.

When I lowered voltage to 13.7v it was acccepting only 9.4 amps.

Huge difference in amperage/flow at those 2 different electrical pressures/voltages showing just how effective this modification is for maximizing alternator contribution to a depleted battery.

Beware of bargain priced components!
 
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