Smart Alternator regulators

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ntsqd

ntsqd

technerd
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I've been looking at going to a smarter than OE regulator (not hard to do) so that my new Platinums are charged as they should be rather than how the automotive OE's have always done it. Not interested (for this thread anyway) in smart chargers that plug in, only in regulators or alternator/regulator combos that do 3 stage charging. Also not looking for increased ampacity, the typical "mean green" or similar answer doesn't apply.

I've looked at the Balmar line (http://www.balmar.net/regulators.html) and the Sterling Power products, but am wondering if there are other options, what they might be, and if anyone has used this type of regulator on land.
 
This would be a great idea, especially if it would prevent the alternator from straining itself too hard (and reduce wear from putting a hard charge to the battery) when the vehicle is started with a low battery.

How much more life do you think a conversion like this would net a larger battery? Do you have an internally or externally regulated alt? Can't remember if you've got a 60 or a 62. Depending on the benefits this could net, it could be worth converting my Beck/Arnley alternator to an externally regulated setup to run one of these Balmar (or whichever brand turns out to be the better solution) regulators. The internal regulator in my alt is a screw-in type, so no soldering, which would make for a much more feasible conversion.
 
I've always had good luck with Balmar equipment. Support and warranty were pretty decent too if I remember correctly?
Upsides are, as Spook mentioned, it doesnt put a load on the alt for a set period after startup. Two mins I think? Freaked me out the first time I installed one, thought I had broken a new high $ alt/regulator setup :). It will add life to decent quality batteries that are drained low and recharged on a regular basis.
As far as translating to land use, the only downside I can see is that they were specifically designed for an application where an engine is run virtually nonstop for most of a day or more, then shut down and batteries are used all night or longer.
Most 4x4 builds, wheeling or expedition, would fall more into that category I think?
My only concern for truck use would be thr occasion where you start up, drive 20 mins, stop. Then repeat it a number of times without a longer trip. Might end up with a battery that wont get charged as well as a factory setup. But that probably wouldnt happen often if ever?
 
EOE_overland said:
My only concern for truck use would be thr occasion where you start up, drive 20 mins, stop. Then repeat it a number of times without a longer trip. Might end up with a battery that wont get charged as well as a factory setup. But that probably wouldnt happen often if ever?
Click to expand...

In theory, if this type of driving is done close to home, you could plug into an AC battery charger to ensure your battery is charged fully at home. If you drive around town all day (short trips) and then plug it in again at night, your battery should be charged properly when daily driving and also on long trips when you need overnight capacity.
 
The Balmar regulator will interrupt the timed charging cycle if it senses the voltage isn't coming up on the batteries.
A winch load will pull the batteries down enough that the regulator will switch back to bulk mode.

For a dual battery setup, you'd still have to divert a single charge feed from the regulator :-/.
Ntsqd, how is your setup now? Two platinum starts, DC, or one of each? And what do you have connecting them?

The Sterling version looks fairly similar. I don't have any experience with that brand, so not much help on that. Quite a bit cheaper though!
 
The pair of Platinums are wired as Dodge did it, direct so that they act as a single battery. I did uprate the cables based on the listed kW of the starter motor when I replaced them. Don't recall particular numbers at the moment, likely 1/0 or so.

The camper has 2 flooded 6V Trojan batteries in series, which could make things trickier except that I'm about to put in a 100W solar panel on the camper's roof with Morningstar 3/4-step solar controller (only does the "equalization" step with flooded batteries). There is a BEP Marine VSR between the truck batteries and the camper batteries, so truck battery charging is all that I'm really concerned about.

Ample Power! That is the page link that I lost while looking into this stuff a couple years ago.
 
Looking at the Ample Power page further, the SAR V3 is their flagship model, but the Next Step 2 regulator does what I'm looking for at $299 list. Still not inexpensive, but quite a bit easier on the checking account than the SAR V3's current list of $449
http://www.amplepower.com/products/ns2/index.html
 
I have no experience with Ample Power, but they look like a decent product. Should do exactly what you're looking for?

You got any pictures of the setup in your truck?? Just for curiosity, sounds like a nice setup. Does the camper live on the truck or you only put it on for trips?
What are your plans to integrate solar in the mix? Only for charging the camping bank?
 
Truck was purchased specifically to haul the camper around and possibly tow the Xcab Mini as a "dinghy."

No pics of the parts you're interested in. I put a Bogart Engineering Tri-Metric battery monitor on the camper batteries expecting to learn what our consumption was before buying a solar panel so that I could size it according to need. They're spendy enough that I only wanted to buy just a little more than what we needed, but the 100W panel deal came along & I decided to jump on it. The solar charge controller that I ordered will split the solar charge 50/50 or 90/10 between two batteries/battery banks. Haven't decided to connect the truck's batteries to it since they are a different type (AGM vs. Flooded) and as far as I know the controller only has one setting for both banks.
Whatever I learn on this truck will be applied to the FJ60 too.
 
Some distressing info gleaned from somewhere on the Ample Power page. Internally regulated alternators are temperature sensitive in that their output falls off as their temperature increases. Sort of a self-preservation aspect built-in.

Externally regulated alternators don't have this "feature". The regulator isn't subjected to the same heat, so it keeps making the alt work as hard as needed even if it is killing it. Which is why marine alt's are so bloody spendy, they're built to take the heat and keep working.
Not sure what this says about OE Toyota alt.'s since most of what we deal with are also externally regulated.
 
ntsqd said:
Some distressing info gleaned from somewhere on the Ample Power page. Internally regulated alternators are temperature sensitive in that their output falls off as their temperature increases. Sort of a self-preservation aspect built-in.

Externally regulated alternators don't have this "feature". The regulator isn't subjected to the same heat, so it keeps making the alt work as hard as needed even if it is killing it. Which is why marine alt's are so bloody spendy, they're built to take the heat and keep working.
Not sure what this says about OE Toyota alt.'s since most of what we deal with are also externally regulated.
Click to expand...

Pretty much at the 62 series and newer everything (US anyway, not sure about international specs) was internally regulated. That said, I wonder if that temperature protection is built into the internal regulators or into the alternator itself. If the alternator itself, I wonder how hard it would be to find a dimensionally compatible alt that's externally regulated but can output 120A or more. IIRC the 60's alt will not fit in place of a 62's. Am I right?

Sent from my Motorola DynaTAC 8000x
 
I suspect that it's not an intentional thing for the regulator to reduce power output when hot. It's more a case of the internal resistance of the regulator goes up when it gets hot, and that reduces the power output. Guess and conjecture on my part, but seems reasonable anyway.

No idea on interchangeability of alts within Series or Sub-series. Some of the Bamar illustration look like what I remember the 60's alt case looking like. If you're going to work off of my memory, well, I TRY not to do so myself....
 
ntsqd said:
I suspect that it's not an intentional thing for the regulator to reduce power output when hot. It's more a case of the internal resistance of the regulator goes up when it gets hot, and that reduces the power output. Guess and conjecture on my part, but seems reasonable anyway.

No idea on interchangeability of alts within Series or Sub-series. Some of the Bamar illustration look like what I remember the 60's alt case looking like. If you're going to work off of my memory, well, I TRY not to do so myself....
Click to expand...

That makes sense that the internal regulator's resistance would increase with heat, rather than being a deliberate design function. If that's the case, then there's another good argument in favor of using a smart external regulator. I'm going to have to double check my wiring diagram to see just which leads are what in my Beck/Arnley alt and look into maybe just running some 16ga wiring (protected by heat resistant sleeving of course) from the alt's leads to an Ample Power regulator mounted behind the heat shield I built for a (hopefully soon to be removed) Mallory ignition box.
 
On my Xcab Mini I got tired of the replacement for stock alts & external regulators failing in short periods and put a Delco CS-130 on it. To do the wiring part I cut the plug off one of the failed regulators and used it to build the adapter harness for the Delco alternator. That way any hacking was unpluggable if I ever wanted to revert back to stock.
 
ntsqd said:
On my Xcab Mini I got tired of the replacement for stock alts & external regulators failing in short periods and put a Delco CS-130 on it. To do the wiring part I cut the plug off one of the failed regulators and used it to build the adapter harness for the Delco alternator. That way any hacking was unpluggable if I ever wanted to revert back to stock.
Click to expand...

The CS130 is what I was planning to convert my Plymouth to before I sold it. Heard nothing but good stuff about it and the CS144 dual rectifier unit. I had just assumed it wouldn't fit, though haven't really measured, but the CS144 DR would be awesome for a 62 with upgraded lights and extra electrical stuff (as long as it could be adapted to fit).

Looks like the heat issue is due to the diodes' efficiency being reduced as they get hotter too. At least that's how it's explained here : http://alternatorparts.com/Extreme Duty Dual Rectifier CS-144 type.htm

Ideal solution from what I see: a CS144 DR with its regulator bypassed to allow use of an external smart regulator.

Edit: That's a beeeeg bitch http://store.alternatorparts.com/cs144-series-140-amp-extreme-duty-dual-rectifier-alternator.aspx

Something else I just found; conversion brackets, one of which lists an ability to convert to Toyota applications that use their "dual foot" type alternators. Major caveat I see here would be in making sure the pulley lines up properly though. http://store.alternatorparts.com/a285-delco-ford-dual-foot-alternator-conversion-bracket.aspx
 
I went round and round on this ands then came to the conclusion that if two alternators could fit, it was the way to do. Alternator #1 is the standard alternator, and is hooked up to the starting battery system only. Alternator #2 is the house battery one and only connected to it. There possibly could be an issue if the house battery is disconnected and they vehicle driven, but that will depend on the alternator chosen. I was looking at using a 120 to 160 Amp CS144 for the second alternator. No need for a isolator. A simple high current knife switch could be used for combining for jump starting, etc..

Going to Balmar regulators and alternators will get you some extra life, but is it cost effective? I couldn't see it being so. If you use AGM type batteries, they can take the high current charge rates even when heavily discharged. I don't know which flooded 6V Trojans you have, but they won't have anywhere near the recharge rate an AGM can take. Another issue is a CS144 can be replaced at any auto parts store. A Balmor would be harder to replace.

I bet it would be more conducive for long battery life to just recharge more often and never let the house batteries get below 50%. Adding in solar will go along ways towards achieving that goal.

BTW: With solar, it changes things allot. Because the solar is constantly recharging the batteries during the day, the deep discharges are much less likely to happen. There is also less load on the alternator system. Look at how many watt hours you use a day, and put a solar panel set with at least 1/4th of that as it's hourly watts rating on the roof, if feasible. Flat mounting the solar panels will lower their output some. A MPPT type controller would be a better way to go with the solar as it will extract much more out of the panels. Be careful, there are many standard PWM controllers that are pawned off as MPPT ones. The Morningstar SunSaver MPPT 15L is the low cost one I'd go with if the solar is 200 Watts and under.

I'd spend the money on solar first.
 
No room for a second Alt, I'd fill it with a York if there was. Camper batteries were mentioned because they're present in the circuit when the BEP Marine VSR closes, but aren't really relevant to this thread. (Solar parts are here, but not yet fully installed. 100W panel, Sunsaver Duo controller, Tri-Metric monitor.)

If the OE alt can be converted to external regulation simply and easily, then reverting it back in the field would be equally easy should the external fail. Of concern is how well the OE alt would work and live with an external regulator.
The starting batteries were nearly $500, I'll need to more than double their lifespan to justify the whole marine charging program. Not sure that will happen, but if I can nearly double their lifespan with something in the $300 range like the Next Step2 regulator then it starts to make sense. The Hitachi (?) alt on my 12 Valve looks a lot like one of the Balmar illustrations. I need to talk to my local Alternator guy about internal to external conversions. If it were the 90A Bosch Alt slated to go on my '65 Slant 6 the conversion would be dead simple, two screws accessible from the rear of the alt.
 
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