Friday, Jan 30, 2009 at 18:43
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What it does:
Energy can be sourced from the alternator, my 140W solar panels and 25A charger - any or all at once. This feeds into the main central bus which feeds all the loads - the fridge, lights, laptop, gps, chargers for cameras, torches, hf and uhf radios…... etc etc. The battery/s (3 auxiliaries in my case) charge/discharge from/to the bus. They are connected to the central bus via a 0.01 ohm resister (a big 200amp meter shunt). A 200 mV digital panel meter reads the voltage across this resistor and displays it as amps (each amp flowing to/from the batteries produces 10 mV). This metering can be omitted, but is very useful in allowing the health of the system to be monitored. A similar meter (not shown) monitors the voltage at the main bus. (Note that such meters require an isolated power supply - I use little switchmode power supplies from Jaycar.)
The fuses provide protection and allow a lot of flexibility. Fuse 2 allows the main battery to be connected directly to the bus. It is usually not plugged into its socket, but when it is inserted it allows the solar panel etc direct access to charge the cranking battery if need be. If the auxiliary batteries are flat it also allows the cranking battery to power the
hf radio, or even keep the fridge running. If the alternator died, and the fuse is installed, my petrol vehicle could even use
solar power for ignition! Individual batteries can be selected simply by inserting a fuse, so if one dies it can be disconnected easily.
Hope that helps. Maybe some ideas if not your prefered solution.
Cheers
John | J and V
"Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted."
- Albert Einstein
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