Ok thanks fellas, the guy in the shop said it would run the engel easy, even if I hooked the solar blanket straight up to the engel.
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Ok thanks fellas, the guy in the shop said it would run the engel easy, even if I hooked the solar blanket straight up to the engel.
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We will be driving from Darwin to cairns, so roughly try an do 600-800kms a day which will charge the auxiliary battery fully.
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2hrs driving each day should see you batteries fully charged
04 ST 3lt auto, not enough Mods to keep me happy, but getting there
If you are driving 600 to 800 kms per day solar panel(s) won’t be much use unless mounted on the vehicle & used to ’top up’ once the alternator has done it’s job!
Just for accuracy, an alternator will not*fully* charge a battery in two hours, not even over the course of an 800km day. It will get it up to 80% to 90% in that time, but not 100%. This may be sufficient in many instances. If the aux battery has a 100Ah capacity, when full gives you around 50 useable AH (if you want the battey to have a long life). if it is only charged to 80% you only have 30Ah of useable capacity, which is getting close to 50% less useable capacity compared to a ‘full’ battery. To get it to full there are insufficient hours in the day to drive. The alternative is a smart charger - either Dc to Dc or a solar charger. The alternative is to use more of the battery’s capacity, & accept significantly shorter battery life.
Note that crank batteries are never ‘fully’ charged, they dont need to be..... very different to a battery used to run something like a fridge.
2006 4.2TDi ex-Telstra Remote area Camper. Patrol Sold after 11 years of ownership Replaced with 2006 OKA NT Expedition Truck. Cummins, Allison & lots of goodies
A Nomadic Life (Blog)
Have an aftermarket alternator from auto8 , think it's 130 amp or bigger .
It's not the alternator max output which determines how quickly a battery can charge once the battery gets to around 80%. Once that full it makes no difference whether the alternator is 30 amp or 130amp. Basically the battery says 'no' & needs to be 'tricked' to take more. That's what a smart charger does. The 130 amp will get it up to 80% quicker though (& will will be better for current hungry accessories like a winch to be used whilst the motor is running).
This explains why smart chargers do a better job than non-smart chargers (including most alternators - 'most', because there are such things as 'smart alternators' which essentially do the same job as a dc to dc charger).
Last edited by Cuppa; 2nd April 2017 at 07:46 PM.
2006 4.2TDi ex-Telstra Remote area Camper. Patrol Sold after 11 years of ownership Replaced with 2006 OKA NT Expedition Truck. Cummins, Allison & lots of goodies
A Nomadic Life (Blog)
I agree with this 100%. I have hard mounted panels and they charge thru a CTEK controller, so the surface charge aspects are resolved, then the smart charge cycle takes over. I run a second alternator also, however this is entirely for bulk current replacement during winching and is hooked to a crank battery allocated just for that task, but that battery also gets the benefit of the smart charge during normal running. Depth of discharge (DOD) is your focus with deep cycle batteries if you want good life and performance.