Electrical Problems

[Harry]

I have an electric issue. I went thru a full bulletproofing process which required pulling the motor out of the van. Now when I have a blue skies 2000 solar controller which monitors the 2 4D Lifeline AGM house batteries. In the past when I started the van the voltage would read in the low 13’s showing the batteries were being charged. Today when I started the van the solar controller read 12.29 and as I drove the level slowly went up. At my first stop after driving 3 ½ hours 200 miles of highway driving it only went up to 12.60. Another 3 ½ hours and another 200 miles of highway driving 12.80. The alternator was just replaced with a motorcraft high output. Any ideas of what is going on?

[rob_gendreau]

So, you had a connection between your van's alternator and the house batteries? Did it not get reconnected? did the circuit breaker for the connection to the rear get tripped?

Is the alternator producing power for the vehicle electrical system?

On my van the alternator wire is disconnected from the van battery and connected to my Sure Power isolator; normally Ford connects that to the van battery and if someone else did that work then that's perhaps what they did too. So the isolator would never send power to the house batteries. Just a guess.

[Harry]

I am getting power to the house batteries it just seems to take an unusually long time for them to be replenished.

[marret]

Have you checked the alternator output?

[Harry]

The output is good 13.28

[Wowbagger]

I'd still check the connection to the battery isolator - if the mechanics hooked the alternator up to the battery, it is possible, depending upon the type of isolator you have, that a trickle of power is going from the starter battery through the isolator to the house battery, even if the alternator isn't connected to the correct port on the isolator.

[marret]

Depending on demand, isn't 13.28 low?

Agree it may be necssary to check all connections.

[Scalf77]

Being that you have a 2008 I would assume you have at a minimal a surepower 1315 , or even possibly you hit the cut in of the Blue Sea 7622. The voltage of 13.28 is low, the surepower won't connect until it see's a minimum of 13.2 +/- 2%. Depending on where you are reading the 13.28, it may not be seeing 13.2 at the surepower.

If you have the bluesea 7622 the the connect voltage is 13.0 volts after 90 secs, again depending where the voltage being read it to may not be seeing the correct voltage. It could also be possible that someone used the lock out knob on the ACR especially since they were doing major work.

I would also question the output of the new alternator.

Another possible issue is if you have the Surepower, there would be a good chance that you are seeing a common problem of high contact resistance. In this case you would be able to here the unit connect, but still not really pass any current over the interior relay terminals.

Contact resistance build up is possible in the Blue Sea ACR, but not as prevalent as the surepower.

If you identify the Separator/Acr/Isolator you have we could give you some more specif things to look at.

[JWA]

Originally Posted by marret

Depending on demand, isn't 13.28 low?

That is a bit low, at least to suit my preference. I'd like to see about 14.3 at first start up, slowly dropping back to somewhere near 14.0. for the remainder of time the engine is running and charging all batteries.

At this point it would be prudent to have the alternator checked by a competent rebuilder or someone who has a good diagnostic battery/alternator tool.