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Alternate Alternator Selection

GeneralDisorder

Well-known member
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Keep the manual disconnect - it's very convenient for working on the truck. And keep the NATO slave receptacle. And for that matter keep the front glad hands. Everyone likes to delete this stuff but it makes jump starting and recovery a PITA for the rest of our community. It's pretty often that guys will have some sort of malfunction and need help from this forum or the Facebook groups and without those items it just make the job harder. Being able to hook up a tow-bar and have working brakes and not have to cage the parking brakes, etc is very handy. Sure you can (and might have to) call a commercial class 8 wrecker but it will cost you 4 digits and potentially 5 and they are VERY likely to break your truck. They have no idea what they are doing with our trucks. You are much better off if the community can rescue you.
 

hike

—realizing each day
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Yes on the 12v battery. It seems prudent to have backup in case there's a failure of the victrons while driving.

No, I removed the relay so there's no aux contacts to run the dash light. I was just thinking there could be a test connection for the switch outside by connecting 1008 to 1855. It's of no use really, just Xmas lights. It'll just be open circuited as shown now.

Only the manual disco remains. I'm on the fence about that as well for the reasons you gave, but it is possible to lock it closed. It's a nice safety device when working in the engine comp. If it fails, contacts failure, then I'd have a possible issue but that seems low probability. Idk
View attachment 918072
We dropped the 12v backfeed, though will have 2-banks of 2-31's separated by a battery combiner which will allow the second bank to start assist, if need.

We removed the LBCD and battery relay disconnects as you did, though brought the 24v alternator to the battery side of the manual disconnect. Batteries and alternator always connected—
 

MatthewWBailey

Father, Husband and Barn Hermit
Steel Soldiers Supporter
355
856
93
Location
Mesa, Colorado
Keep the manual disconnect - it's very convenient for working on the truck. And keep the NATO slave receptacle. And for that matter keep the front glad hands. Everyone likes to delete this stuff but it makes jump starting and recovery a PITA for the rest of our community. It's pretty often that guys will have some sort of malfunction and need help from this forum or the Facebook groups and without those items it just make the job harder. Being able to hook up a tow-bar and have working brakes and not have to cage the parking brakes, etc is very handy. Sure you can (and might have to) call a commercial class 8 wrecker but it will cost you 4 digits and potentially 5 and they are VERY likely to break your truck. They have no idea what they are doing with our trucks. You are much better off if the community can rescue you.
Yeah I'm not deleting anything that makes my life easier. I've used that front gladhand a few dozen times already just to release the brakes. Pretty convenient! Plus I have the gladhand adapter and hose for airing up tires manually (if needed) since my CTIS is out of order. I have 2 sets of nato slave receptacle hookups, one big honking set for nato-to-nato connection, 20' 4/0 cable that was a used find on eBay, if I ever need a jump from another lmtv. The other is just a nato plug with 1' long cable and bare battery connections I use for jumping with my jump-and-carry unit, or for external charging on demand.
 

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MatthewWBailey

Father, Husband and Barn Hermit
Steel Soldiers Supporter
355
856
93
Location
Mesa, Colorado
We dropped the 12v backfeed, though will have 2-banks of 2-31's separated by a battery combiner which will allow the second bank to start assist, if need.

We removed the LBCD and battery relay disconnects as you did, though brought the 24v alternator to the battery side of the manual disconnect. Batteries and alternator always connected—
Yes I like that arrangement too. The separate 12v battery isn't really necessary with 2 victrons powering up the 12v side. I'm always thinking about what happens when stuff breaks, while driving. The wires are already there and it's no extra cost to leave the battery there.
 

Ronmar

Well-known member
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Location
Port angeles wa
the manual disconnect is handy for maintenance. i havn't added one, but I will when I get my final configuration sorted out. As for backup, that is what the house battery cross tie will be for:)
 

MatthewWBailey

Father, Husband and Barn Hermit
Steel Soldiers Supporter
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856
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Location
Mesa, Colorado
I got tired of typing my dreams and just started it up. The "charging system" light works as expected. Tested it firsts and it's good. See pics of diode assembly. I appreciate you guys making this happen🫡🇺🇸

Alt produced 99amps with the AIH on and batteries a little drained(only 2). Then with AIH off it went to 20A and 28.02v. Not much movement in voltage. Batts were tracking 0.1v less than at the alt terminal.

new serpentine was fine but was close to short. My old belt was 80" and I mistakenly used the parts spreadsheet to measure from and that says 78.25". The one on there now is 68-5/8". I've got 1/4" of gap on the top tensioner limit. Close.

now onto the PDP board. Mine doesn't look like the manual but I was going to use the radio CB20 as a power feed for the victrons.


 

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MatthewWBailey

Father, Husband and Barn Hermit
Steel Soldiers Supporter
355
856
93
Location
Mesa, Colorado
Finally wired up my 12v victrons. I already had 2 of these 24/12-20 units with Bluetooth, for another project. I couldn't really find a good breaker to hook them to so I just added a 30a fuse off of X3 and paralleled the 2 outputs onto X2. The Bluetooth setup allows for monitoring and changing settings.

set the low input cutout for both to 22v and the reset to 27.5v. That way, these won't turn on until the starter's done and then AIH finishes, then a delay for voltage to return to 28. Should act like a reactive timer function.

There's no room for these inside so they're attached to the center console. I'm making a stainless cover for the center console foot area to house these and some other things later so these will be open for now. Helps with Bluetooth anyway.

With everything 12v I could turn on at once, I was only pulling 14.8 amps. So 2 units is definitely overkill.
 

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