Friday, June 14, 2013

Regulator Connection




Of special note are the the A, B, C, and D terminals.  These are used to allow the regulator to support P-type (High Drive) or N-Type (Low Drive) alternators w/o any other changes.  As shown (with the Jumper between A and B) the regulator is configured for a P-Type (High Drive) field. The Field is then connected to C/D (or in this case just C as the other end of the field is connected internally in the alternator to ground.)  To support a N-type, one would jumper C&D, and connect the Field to A/B.  (Or just B if the alternator has connected the other end of the Field to BAT+ internally).

The DIP switch is used to select built in charging profiles, while the Bluetooth (or via the Service Port) can be used to enter custom profiles.

The Battery + and Battery - connections should be made AT THE BATTERY, while the Alt + and Alt- should be made directly to the alternator.  (The reason I separated the BAT and ALT wires is to allow support for Alternators which might have a different field voltage then the charging battery.  e.g., using a converter 12v alternator to charge a 48v battery where the field is still 12v).



V0.0.0 connector location  (Original  design - no longer supported)

v0.1.x connector locations (Latest/ current through-hole design)


v0.3.x connector locations (CAN - SMT design)





3 comments:

  1. You might have covered this somewhere else but I thought the battery shunt was supposed to go on the negative side of the system?

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  2. Not sure why that posted as unknown

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  3. Hi - for the regulator, the shunt can actually be placed in either the + or or the - line. Most systems use a gnd reference, the hardware is simpler. But I added extra hardware on the regulator to allow the shunt to be placed either high or low.

    The primary reason for this is most alternators are mounted on engines where the GND return path is shared between several things: Alternator, starter, perhaps a 2nd alternator -- so being able to isolate current from the alternator being controlled typical requires the shunt to be placed high, or the purchase of a ground-isolated alternator.

    FWIW, contrast this to the DC-generator controller where the shunt is indeed placed in the GND line. This is because the engine controller uses current sensing of the starter to decide when to disengage stater while starting the engine.

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