Solar and alternator charging at the same time

[dbsoundman]

Hi all, just wanted to make sure I wasn't about to do something stupid.

I have been browsing the various packages on AM Solar's website as inspiration for my own battery system, and one of the things I noticed is they had setups where there was an alternator charge source connected to the house batteries through a battery isolator, as well as the solar charge controller, which was also connected to the house batteries.

My question is, what happens when the alternator is running and the solar charger is also providing output? Is that a problematic situation? I don't actually have solar panels yet, I'm using a shore powered DC power supply for now until I get my exterior painting done, at which point I'll start thinking about panels. So currently I just run the shore DC charger into the solar charge controller, which works great. I have a BlueSea SI-ACR ready to go for alternator charging, but I wanted to verify the connectivity before I set it all up.

[john61ct]

No problem, you can have lots of disparate sources hooked up all concurrently regulating, switching on and off whatever works out fine in the end.

Ideally similar charge profiles, but even if not.

With an LFP bank, watch out for drawing too many amps, sources need current limiting.

Putting everything through a DCDC charger is a good practice there.

[dbsoundman]

Originally Posted by john61ct

No problem, you can have lots of disparate sources hooked up all concurrently regulating, switching on and off whatever works out fine in the end.

Ideally similar charge profiles, but even if not.

With an LFP bank, watch out for drawing too many amps, sources need current limiting.

Putting everything through a DCDC charger is a good practice there.

Excellent, thanks! That was the impression I was getting but I wanted to make sure.

I have an AGM battery bank but a DCDC charger may be nice just to limit the load on my alternator.

[john61ct]

Rarely an issue with lead.

Deplete it to 50% then measure how much it draws at high rpm