Diesel RVs

A starter battery for your car is just that. It is meant to start your car. People use them on accessory to run the radio but they are not the best deep cycle battery. Some starter batteries are like the Optima and can be used that way but they were so over kill that the manufacturer has watered them down to make more money. Here are the facts as I understand them. A healthy charged battery might be over 13vdc when fully charged. Keeping it that way in standby is 13.8. Full charging voltage is 14.4 to 15. Resting a battery is fully charged at 13 or more volts and as you use up a battery 12v would be dead. Now you can go further and drain a battery below 12v but it can ruin a battery. So for lead batteries the closer you keep them to 13vdc the better for the battery. Your voltage regulator makes these adjustments telling the alternator what to put out. An accurate multimeter lets you monitor this process. So when you go to your car in the morning to start and want to monitor the system before you start a healthy battery should be close to 13vdc. After starting it will be less but the voltage regulator will kick up to it's highest voltage for a while until the battery catches up. 14.4 to 15 volts. When the battery is fully charged the voltage regulator senses this and goes down to 13.8 or so. Could be less but if it falls much below 13vdc it could cause the battery to be under charged but this is tricky. If it is too high your battery can burn off electrolyte. Too low it will sulfate. Causing an early death. Just my two cents. That maintenance voltage is the real question. What should it be. Some say 12.3. I disagree. Some say 12.8 is good enough. Maybe. I say 13.3 is minimum. 13.8 keeps it real hot. But a voltage regulator doing it's job will take most of the load while driving keeping the battery perfectly topped up for the next start. You say what if I drive a block and the battery doesn't catch up. That is why it has extra capacity and you should own a battery charger. Just in case. Lawrence Rhodes.....

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I got home from Spokane at 4:30 yesterday, in the dark, 10 degrees. I needed to run my diesel generator, went to start it, no go. Just made a clicking sound like the battery was shot. It is several years old. It was too cold and I was too tired to deal with it. I got home from Sacramento Sunday afternoon after riding in a car all night(never do that again), came home to about 5 inches of snow, then Sunday night it snowed a lot, got about 12" now. At least I got the road plowed before my plow crapped out. It's winter for sure. Max

On Thu, Dec 5, 2013 at 7:52 AM, <vwnate1@yahoo.com> wrote:

That's good Mike ;

Now you have the lifetime guarantee , just go buy the BOSCH branded voltage regulator and enjoy super bright lights and *instant* cold starts , even in to - day's 39* F morning .

-Nate
Mike Wrote :

Thanks Nate. I must confess I brought my alternator at autozone.

Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android

From: vwnate1@... <vwnate1@...>;
To: <diesel_mercedes@yahoogroups.com>;
Subject: [diesel_mercedes] Charging Voltage on 71 220D
Sent: Wed, Dec 4, 2013 2:12:56 AM

Mike ;

That's very good indeed .

As long as it remains above 13 VDC when you're on the throttle , you're good to go .

The proper charging rate is 13.2 ~ 14.7 VDC , measured above idle a little bit .

My fix after messing around with high output alternators was to use _ONLY_ Bosch branded voltage regulators ~ you should pick one up now and stash it in your glove box because when the brushes wear down you'll be stuck with whatever crappy " it's just as good as the Bosch one ! " junk the partshaus has and that _always_ charges too low no matter what .

Easy to change in one minute , too .

-Nate
Mike Asked :

Does anyone know what I should get from the alternator? Right now when cruising under load I am getting around 13.5.

I have had no starts but should that happen when the battery is at 12.3?

Thanks you guys are great.

Mike