Saabpilot
New Member
I have recently purchased a Toyota Hybrid Hylander (Kruger in Australia). THanks to the 2 metric ton towing capacity this is an adequate tow vehicle to small to medium size trainers.
This vehicle has no alternator and chargers the starting battery through a DCDC charger from the main NiMh battery.
I approached this with caution and consulted with an auto-electrician before proceeding.
I have successfully installed a Renogy 30A DCDC charger with Mppt in the vehicle and it is working brilliantly.
I chose the 30A version for the following reason.
1. I am charging a single 100Ah Lithium battery
2. Reduced heat dissipation required due to the under-floor location of the Renogy charger
3. Ability to use 8 AWG cables with no loss of performance (4 AWG was used to the trailer plug connected to a 120A Anderson plug)
The auto-electrian installed electric brakes, so I got him to install a 50A Anderson plug in the trunk area of the vehicle. He isolated this with a Redarc battery isolator that is triggered (OFF) when the starter battery hits a trigger voltage. This is over-kill if you are just connecting a DCDC charger as the isolation function is built into the charger.
I was concerned about the maximum current from the main battery charger, but I am advised that the fuse is something like 160A so plenty of margin.
I connected the DCDC charger to the Redarc isolator (out of an abundance of caution).
What to do with the Alternator sensor? Did it matter? I found that it mattered a lot. I found in testing that connecting it to the input side of the DCDC charger doubled the charging current from 15A to around 28A. This was repeatable.
I installed the charger on the passenger side on the floor behind the third row of seats. It is screwed into the body to help with heat dissipation. Although the space is confined, there is a vent close by and the device does not get very hot thanks to the cooling vanes.
Very happy with the whole installation. Only thing I don’t like about this charger is the low solar input voltage.. 30V can be exceeded with a single panel. For my requirements this is not a problem.
Yet to observe how the system “sees” the solar battery but it seems to behave much like an alternator and drops the voltage from over 14V to around 13V when the starter battery is fully charged. The DCDC charger seems to handle this as expected and continues to provide charge to the solar battery but it drops back to around 15A (This may be partially due to the charging profile of the charger)
I installed the charger on the passenger side on the floor behind the third row of seats. It is screwed into the body to help with heat dissipation.
This vehicle has no alternator and chargers the starting battery through a DCDC charger from the main NiMh battery.
I approached this with caution and consulted with an auto-electrician before proceeding.
I have successfully installed a Renogy 30A DCDC charger with Mppt in the vehicle and it is working brilliantly.
I chose the 30A version for the following reason.
1. I am charging a single 100Ah Lithium battery
2. Reduced heat dissipation required due to the under-floor location of the Renogy charger
3. Ability to use 8 AWG cables with no loss of performance (4 AWG was used to the trailer plug connected to a 120A Anderson plug)
The auto-electrian installed electric brakes, so I got him to install a 50A Anderson plug in the trunk area of the vehicle. He isolated this with a Redarc battery isolator that is triggered (OFF) when the starter battery hits a trigger voltage. This is over-kill if you are just connecting a DCDC charger as the isolation function is built into the charger.
I was concerned about the maximum current from the main battery charger, but I am advised that the fuse is something like 160A so plenty of margin.
I connected the DCDC charger to the Redarc isolator (out of an abundance of caution).
What to do with the Alternator sensor? Did it matter? I found that it mattered a lot. I found in testing that connecting it to the input side of the DCDC charger doubled the charging current from 15A to around 28A. This was repeatable.
I installed the charger on the passenger side on the floor behind the third row of seats. It is screwed into the body to help with heat dissipation. Although the space is confined, there is a vent close by and the device does not get very hot thanks to the cooling vanes.
Very happy with the whole installation. Only thing I don’t like about this charger is the low solar input voltage.. 30V can be exceeded with a single panel. For my requirements this is not a problem.
Yet to observe how the system “sees” the solar battery but it seems to behave much like an alternator and drops the voltage from over 14V to around 13V when the starter battery is fully charged. The DCDC charger seems to handle this as expected and continues to provide charge to the solar battery but it drops back to around 15A (This may be partially due to the charging profile of the charger)
I installed the charger on the passenger side on the floor behind the third row of seats. It is screwed into the body to help with heat dissipation.
