Sterling alternator to battery charger

[cyclops2]

Has anyone installed a Sterling alternator to battery charger and if so how did it work? It supposedly chargers leisure batteries 5 times faster than normal. Its also good for the battery so that they last longer than normal. Not sure if they might put too much load on the alternator

 

Pete

 

[hairydog]

I've installed two - the first was second-hand and proved to be faulty!

 

Dead easy to install, provided you can get suitable heavy-duty cables and have somewhere to fit the unit.

 

It works absolutely brilliantly. When driving along it keeps the aux battery charged much, much better than the old split charge relay did. The alternator can't possibly monitor two different lots of batteries at the same time, so this takes care of the aux batteries for it.

 

I have recently moved the solar panel connection to the engine battery, so that gets charged first. This morning, it was sunny. By the time I went to look mid-morning, the engine battery was at 14.1v and the aux batteries were at 14.42v.

 

By lunchtime the solar controller had decided that the engine battery was full, so that was at 13.8v but the aux batteries were still at 14.42.

 

By 3pm the aux bank was full too and they were at 13.8v as well.

 

It shouldn't overload the alternator. For one thing, alternators are supposed to be able to give their rated output which is usually in the order of 100A, and for another, there is a temperature sensor that you attach to the alternator to monitor it. It is gets too hot, the Sterling shuts down the current draw till it has cooled down.

 

However, on my van the very old alternator seems to run out of puff at about 60A. I plan to replace it some time this month.