crd 150a alternator upgrade

I recently had the pulley come off my original alternator, dropping the belt and losing all things important (like aircon & water pump). Not to worry, being only a few kms from home after a trip to Bunnings to buy steel for some solar mounting on my shed, I nursed it home with coolant temp sender reporting 118c due to the lack of coolant flow.

I ordered the OEX 150a upgrade unit from Patrolapart, waited about 3 days, then put it on. Interestingly, the OBD2 port is reporting 14.6-14.7v while my Victron battery sense is reporting 14.35-14.45v at the battery.

I haven't tried any huge loads, I'm just happy the car works again. I didn't bother with the included upgrade cable as it didn't look any fatter than the original, nonetheless one could simply piggyback it over the original cable if desired.

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Reported electrical outputs for a range of things on cars all vary depending on the quality of the devices and the unknown dampening within the circuits. Specifically we find the temp gauge sitting at mid position, always have, then install an aux gage and the water temp is sitting at 95 deg - not much room to 110C where its going to start boiling, yet the time the factory gauge takes to get to the 'red' seems forever. On the Madigan Trip that wasn't, the temp gauge was sitting mid stream and the aftermarket gauge at 100C - To be honest I trust the after market gauge , as long as its a quality brand. Even then the calibration can be off quite a bit. I have volt gauges, pod gauges, and then two different brand hand held multi meter, and they all read differently. The challenge then is to temper the expectation and simply resolve if the numbers are on average, about where they should be sitting and then ignore the 'hundredths of a volt difference'. My lithium bank is supposed to have a float voltage at 100% full of 13.5V - it floats at 13.35, does not matter what I do, all 4 batteries are the same. After a lot of time spent testing and going back and forth to the supplier, I decided to set the 100% on the gauge to 13.35V and happy days - means nothing. If the performance of the battery charge circuit changes its going to be reflected in the capacity value. Specific to your issue, this may then reversing my point, but I would be inclined to believe the OBD port than the Charge controller as there is no advantage for Nissan to over report battery voltage. I think you could look at volt drop as the culprit here as DC is a nightmare especially at low voltages. Run a parallel cable to increase the conductor size from alternator to the controllr and see if that helps. I have found cable size on my intercooler pumps to be absolutely critical to get them to pump at the rated speed and shift the water. o.5 volt drop on the circuit and the output can drop from 30LPM to 15LPM and then the temps go up.

I have two aftermarket temp gauges personally, scan gauge and engine guard with probes on the hot side of the motor and cold side of the thermostat housing.

What are you using to charge your lithium battery? Float is not completely necessary for LFP. I have 38.4v lithium battery in the back which receives 41.2v from a boost converter while cranking batteries are above 14.2v.

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Originally Posted by pollenface

I have two aftermarket temp gauges personally, scan gauge and engine guard with probes on the hot side of the motor and cold side of the thermostat housing.

What are you using to charge your lithium battery? Float is not completely necessary for LFP. I have 38.4v lithium battery in the back which receives 41.2v from a boost converter while cranking batteries are above 14.2v.

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I use 2 x 100amp Renogy Chargers that are specifically set up to allow parallel charging up to 200amp - its a particular model, not crazy expensive and I wanted to have the back up of at least 100amp charge if one died. Regards my float volts, during charge with a 30 amp charger I can get the boost voltage at circa 14.7 then it equalises to 13.50V, switch off the charger, disconnect the earth and within 4 hrs its floating at 13.35. Have tried individual batteries on chargers up to 120amps, same result, float is 13.35V All good for me, spectacular performance compared to AGM which were 3 times the weight and half the usable capacity. The bank size is 400amp, being 4 x 100, bought this specific model of battery for the drawdown peak to allow running of a 10KW 12/240 inverter to run a mig welder - works faultlessly. My alternator is 300amp rated 100% duty cycle but most I have seen it pump out is 190amps. I had to upgrade cables etc and also have the cables punning a selective parallel route, so primary cables to the 100amp charge controllers and then a second direct cable runs to the batterie via a marine selector switch, so I can punch in more if required as the batteries can accept up to 250amps if required, nominal charge rated at 120amps. AS usual cables galore, all fuse isolated, very busy, but all works with reliability.

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Originally Posted by PeeBee

AS usual cables galore, all fuse isolated, very busy, but all works with reliability.

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Sounds like a pretty serious system, I can only imagine :)

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Originally Posted by pollenface

Sounds like a pretty serious system, I can only imagine :)

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My greatest limitation, is my electrical systems installed follow a 'form follows function', which does not deliver the degree of electrical finesse that more electrically inclined others do. As a Mech engineer, my electrical stuff is messy but functional. I am gradually improving and reducing the amount of smoke that comes out of the cable at times, and the reliability is getting a lot better.

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Originally Posted by PeeBee

As a Mech engineer, my electrical stuff is messy but functional. I am gradually improving and reducing the amount of smoke that comes out of the cable at times, and the reliability is getting a lot better.

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I assure you, as a machine operator my electrical work doesn't deserve photos