Sterling charger settings after Trik-L-Start install?

[Peter Tourin]

So far, so good. Iʻve only done a bit of testing. But when I plugged in my shore power, the TrikʻLʻStart went to Charging as soon as the house came up to 13.0 volts. After I unplugged again, it stayed on Charging until the house dropped to 12.8, then switched to flashing green. Iʻll do more testing after I button things up, but I think I have that under control now. More after I test a bit more.

 

[Peter Tourin]

Later... This seems to be working now. As a test, I pulled my chassis battery down to 12.5 and the house batteries down to 12.3. With no shore power, the Trik-L-Start was on Standby.

When I plugged in to shore power, my Xantrex charger moved the house batteries from 12.3 to 13.4 and during this time the Trik-L-Start moved to Charging. Over the next half hour or so, the chassis battery moved from 12.3 to 13.2 (on the Dometic panel Power page).

At this point I had to unplug shore power for 20 minutes. The chassis battery dropped a bit, 12.8 -> 12.7. The house batteries dropped to 13.0 and the Trik-L-Start changed to Maintain (solid green); then they dropped to 12.8 and the Trik-L-Start dropped to Standby (flashing green). This all seems fine.

When I plugged shore power in again, the chassis battery immediately moved from 12.6 to 12.8 and the house batteries moved from 12.8 to 14.2 as the Xantrex came on again; the Trik-L-Start changed to Charging during this time. This also seems fine.

Over the next short time the chassis battery moved from 12.8 to 13.2 and the house batteries stayed at 14.2 - when I went out to look I noticed the Trik-L-Start go to Maintenance and then back to Charging. QUESTIONS: Iʻm not sure why it did this, and Iʻm not sure if the Trik-L-Start is supposed to always stay on Charging as long as thereʻs shore power and the house batteries are high enough. Does it ever stop charging (that is, does change from Charging to Maintenance), or does it stay in Charging but its charge current simply drops to zero as the chassis battery voltage approaches the Trik-L-Startʻs output voltage of ~13.5? Thatʻs sort of like asking if it brings the chassis battery up to itʻs output voltage of ~13.5 and basically floats it there - voltage stays a bit below 13.5, current goes to zero since thereʻs no voltage differential between chassis battery and charger....

 

[SSTraveler]

I don't watch mine but that sounds right. When I do look at my Victron BMV-712 I mostly see the chassis battery floating. My Trik-L-Start keeps the chassis battery at 0.3v less than the house battery voltage so my chassis battery is maintained at 13.2v. If you just want confirmation you may want to call or email LSL they will answer your questions.

 

[Peter Tourin]

Iʻve never bothered to set up the 2nd battery reading to watch the chassis battery, but this is a good reason to do that - to sort this out, Iʻm always looking at the SmartShunt and GoPower iPhone apps and the Dometic Power page. It works but itʻs a juggling act <g>... Thanks for all the help with this - it took me a while to understand what was happening and how it was supposed to work.

 

[TJLee089]

I believe the unit would cycle between "charging" (yellow) and "maintaining" (steady green), as necessary, when house batteries are conected to a power source, depending on the actual amperage. There may well be a threshold where the yellow turns to green. To be honest, because my Trik-L-Start works so well, I never have occasion to look at the lights.

 

[Peter Tourin]

Yes, thatʻs what Iʻd guess - that it shows Charging when the current is over some setpoint, say 4 amps - and when it drops below that, it shows Maintenance. IOW, itʻs a simple system where the charge current drops to zero as the battery voltage approaches the Trik-L-Startʻs output voltage - their charging curve says the output voltage is 13.5, so as the battery goes to 13.1, 13.2, 13.3, the current drops to zero. I hope I donʻt have to look at the lights now that itʻs in there - I mounted it under the passenger seat just above and behind the Sterling, and I have a tiny peephole under the seat so I can see the lights if Iʻm really curious. If I open the plastic access door, I can see all the Trik-L-Start and Sterling lights, and I can reach the 50A breakers on each side of the Sterling, and also the fuse in the Trik-L-Start line to the chassis battery - at the moment itʻs a 15A mini blade, because I had one. I hope thatʻs big enough - the Mega Trik-L-Start rev. F1 specs page says the max output is 10A, but the graph shows it can go up to 13 - go figure....

 

[Peter Tourin]

One last problem to go, then I believe weʻre home free...

We left NH last Sunday and weʻre in Louisville now. Iʻve had time to watch the electrical systems including my changes, and Iʻm about 90% good. The Trik-L-Start charges the chassis battery when it should. As for house battery charging, itʻs real clear that if your house batteries are low, itʻs worth switching the fridge to Manual Propane - otherwise about 16-17 amps of the Sterlingʻs 25 or so charging amps go to the fridge and your house batteries donʻt charge fast at all - not good if you plan to dry camp for a few nights in a row!

The one remaining problem is that my top 50 amp breaker, the one to the chassis battery, keeps tripping every few hours when Iʻm driving and the Sterling is charging the house batteries. I canʻt see any reason there should ever be enough flow to trip it - can anybody see something Iʻm missing? Those are cheap breakers - Iʻm wondering if Iʻve simply got a bad one. Itʻs a bit of a pain - gotta keep stopping and resetting it every so often - but itʻll get me through, I guess <g>...

 

[SSTraveler]

Try switching them to see if the other one does the same thing. You really don't need the Chassis battery breaker since you ran the Trik-L-Start directly to the battery. Just use a butt connector and splice the wires back together. Leisure has an 80a breaker closer to the battery on their Sterling Installation so you don't need another circuit breaker in line.

 

[Peter Tourin]

Thanks, Iʻll give it a try - maybe not during the trip, as weʻre pushing - but if not, when we get back. Thanks for all the help - weʻre 5 days into this trip and allʻs well except the glitchy breaker issue.

 

[hein]

A little late to this thread and have not read all posts.

We have a small 7A maintenance charger on our starting battery. But we need to disable the Sterling DC-to-DC charger when the maintenance charger is on. This is because the maintenance charger will push the voltage up so the Sterling thinks the van is running and then starts trying to charge the house batteries with the trickle charger. -which is not intended as we have a Magnum inverter/charger that maintains house batteries.

Solution is to put a switch in line with the jumper (from either Ignition or Auto to sense) so the sterling see's 0V when trickle charger is running. That puts it in sleep mode. We have that switch in the dash with one of our adapters so we can turn on/off the Sterling as needed while driving.

We do also have the Sterling remote which makes programming and monitoring it much easier.

Hope that helps,
Hein
DIYvan

 

[Scubalong]

Greetings
Can someone post a picture of the setup? I am about to install amp-l stater in conjunction with sterling bb1260. I just want to make all the wiring connect correctly and not burn my van down lol. Thanks in advance.

 

[SSTraveler]

I installed a Sterling BB1230 and a Trik-L-Start, and found you have to put the Sterling in Pure Ignition Mode, meaning the Sterling only comes on with an actual ignition signal. This is different from their standard modes, whereby the Sterling basically goes into a sleeping and monitors for chassis battery cable voltage, which triggers it to wake up and start working. If you don't do this then when the Amp-L-Start puts voltage above 13.2v on the chassis battery cable then the Sterling wakes up and creates a charging do loop between your chassis batteries and house batteries, which eventually discharges both. Here is a guide I wrote on my experience, it details the Sterling settings. I used the LifePO4 settings and put mine with V69+ software, green strip unit, on Pure Ignition Mode. I eventually replaced the Sterling because its output is only like 22-24a, it frequently overheats and completely stops charging, and its fans are noisy. I replaced it with a Kisae DMT1250 50a DC-DC Charger and had to install a relay to address the do loop charging issue when trying to use my Trik-L-Start with it. That replacement is detailed at the end of my attached guide.