Installing this Renogy unit in my four-wheel drive proved a little bit of a nightmare. Only initially though.
I was able to pick up from a fellow YouTubers video that the ignition cable needs to be attached no matter what.
Although the instructions state that dumb alternators such as mine do not need an ignition cable, it is obvious when you set up the unit that you do.

The second issue is that of the solar panels gaining priority over the alternator.
Therefore the alternator can only put in 25 amps max when driving.
I only run a 100 watt permanent panel so that gives me 8 amps at best. Therefore maximum that I can get through the setup is 32 amps, the 8 amps for the solar and a maximum of 25 from the alternator.

The solution here was to set up a relay in order to turn the solar panels off when driving.
I now get up to 50 amps pending the availability from my alternator whilst running other items in the vehicles such as air conditioning and lights.

If I were to do this again I would utilise a dedicated 50 amp DC to DC charger along with a separate dedicated MPPT charge controller.

The batteries I am running are the Itech 120amp lithium ones. The good part about the lithium batteries is that it takes 100% of whatever you can throw at them right up to virtually full charge.

As amateur as this video is, I hope it is helpful to others exploring their options in their four-wheel drive for DC to DC charging incorporating solar.

свернуть