Wakespeed configuration with Nations alternator

hdaniels

Well-known member
I have been running the WS500 and a Nations 280XP alternator for the past year and its worked really well for me. During that time, I knew the alternator was working because I could see the charge coming into my electrical system on the DC side. See photo below:

In the past year, Wakespeed and Victron have come out with many updates so the Wakespeed can be added to the Cerbo Gx as a device. With the Wakespeed added to the Cerbo as a device there are a lot more specific information you can see regarding the alternator on the Cerbo Gx.

Wakespeed now uses an app to update their product which is a huge improvement. After configuring my Wakespeed via the app and using the default settings for the set-up I have, everything seems to be working correctly except the speed and engine speed values on the Cerbo. See photo below with sprinter van in park and at idle:

My set-up:
2020 Mercedes Sprinter van
Nations 280XP 3 belt dual alternator kit for Sprinter Van
6 - 100 Amp hour battle born batteries model #BB10012
All Victron electrical system components

So here are my questions:

What is the speed RMPs? Is it the RMPs of the alternator which would be higher because it's a smaller pulley.

How should I be configuring the alternator differently to get the speed RPMs and Engine RPMs correct on the Cerbo:

My current configuration has sense RPMs via stator wire off? Should I turn this on? Then what should I put in the Minimum Field Drive %?

Turn on Calibrate WS500 tachometer? Anyone know the diameter of the Nations 280XP alternator drive pulley? Diameter of the motor pulley for the alternator?

Use adaptive idle pullback? I don't think I use this function, but if anyone has more information about it, that would be nice. What are the PBF Value? Engine idle RPMs?

In Expert mode of configuring the alternator under Calibrate WS500 tachometer is Alternator Poles. Anyone know how many alternator poles the Nations 280XP alternator has?

Any help would be much appreciated?

IMG_9420.JPGIMG_2236.JPGIMG_2238.JPGAlternator Config.JPGAlternator Config Expert Mode.JPG
 
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hdaniels

Well-known member
Seems again I am an early adopter and there is not much information is out there. Hopefully I will hear back from Battleborn or Nation's alternators this week. Btw, Battleborn purchased Wakespeed so when you call Wakespeed for tech support, you are calling Battleborn. It's a new product for them so their customer service is not very familiar with this product yet. It was cool before when you called Wakespeed and spoke with Rick or Al, the inventors of the Wakespeed. I will let you know how it goes.
 

carbon60

2022 4x4 3500XD 170 HR
I'm watching you closely!

I'm hovering over the order button to get a WS500 and a Nations 3-belt 24V kit for my 2022 3.0l diesel.
 

VanGoSki

Well-known member
Note that these parameters aren't used in my remote-master configuration with CANbus BMS, but the topic is still interesting to me. Maybe @mikecol @owenfi can chime in who I believe run Wakespeed non-CAN systems.

Regarding the #poles and pulley ratios... it probably depends on which model alternator you have. For my 12V alternator I'm pretty sure it's either 6 or 12 based on the fact that I have 12 diodes in my rectifier.

There's a forum for REC/Wakespeed users run by one of their distributors which also has discussions on non-CAN systems. Here's a link to a thread there that gives an easy way of determining the ratio using the default of 12 poles. https://www.offgridsoftwaresolution...ic/ws500-how-to-set-alternator-poles-and-rpm/

You might want to join that site and poke around. There's a lot of discussion of using the WS500 with the Cerbo, although most of them seem to be REC based.
 
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hdaniels

Well-known member
VanGoSki, I looked at the offgridsoftwaresolutions.com. There was a little information on how to figure out the alternator and drive pulley ratios by measuring them. I have an email into Nations so I figured I would wait to see if they reply with an answer. Thank you!
 

TooMuchHair

Active member
VanGoSki, I looked at the offgridsoftwaresolutions.com. There was a little information on how to figure out the alternator and drive pulley ratios by measuring them. I have an email into Nations so I figured I would wait to see if they reply with an answer. Thank you!
The pulley diameters on my similar but different 3 belt drive (made by CW Kits, purchased from American Power Systems in 2019)
are 192mm and 52mm for a
ratio of 3.69 to 1.
I still haven't taken time to figure out how to get the RPMs to read accurately though, so also watching your progress.
Thanks
 

owenfi

2020 Sprinter 2500 170 4x4
Hi! I'm running a very similar setup to what you have, though mine is a 24V alternator, and 24V BattleBorn batteries, and Victron 24V5000 Quattro and CerboGX (and solar MPPT/shunt).

I haven't updated anything since I got it running initially, nor did I hear that BattleBorn bought Wakespeed. That's interesting (considering their batteries are more of the "black box" style, vs communicating, maybe they are working on something new in that vane–thought I just checked their site and see a couple new batteries they look to be the same architecture).

This appears to be where I talked about ratio, 2.393 in my case, not sure if I ever found out specifically where that came from, seems to be working okay (though I recall tweaking the settings file at least once) -- and that's for the 24V Nations which I'm not sure if it's the same size as what you have.
 

George47

New member
I'm watching you closely!

I'm hovering over the order button to get a WS500 and a Nations 3-belt 24V kit for my 2022 3.0l diesel.
I've been trying to get some simple answers about how to hook up my Nations/Wakespeed package for several weeks and am being ignored by these companies. My package came with instructions on how to mechanically install the alternator but had no instructions about how to hook it up electrically (other than a diagram that was completely different than the alternator or the wiring harness that they supplied). Basically, the product is useless because I don't know how to connect it. In addition, the instructions provided on each company's website (Wakespeed, Nations & Victron) are completely different for the same products (e.g., Nations says "no stator wire needed" and Wakespeed says "all alternators must have the stator wire connected"). Perhaps the sale of Wakespeed to BattleBorn is causing the silence and lack of responsiveness. In any event, if you require any assistance from these guys for your setup, you'd better wait to purchase until they become more responsive (or purchase something else....)

VERY FRUSTRATING!!!
 
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hdaniels

Well-known member
So far, no help from Battleborn or Nations. Battleborn customer service rep was very nice and tried to come up with some answers but no one there knows anything about this product. Probably going to take them 6 months to a year to catch up on this new product. Nations, customer service reps are very nice as well but the person who knows the answers to the questions I am asking has not gotten back to me after three phone calls and an email. Still waiting.

Of course, Sprinter-Source and the people here have been the best resource. Can't say enough about the awesome community here. Thank you!

So I did not get the RPMs perfect but in the ballpark. I configured the Wakespeed in the Expert mode to get the Speed and RPMs close on my Cerbo Gx to the engine RPMs.

I went with the Alternator pole configuration of 12, alternator pulley diameter size of 52mm and drive pulley diameter size of 192mm. The measurements of my alternator and drive pulley were very close to those measurements. Hard to be exact with a tape measure.Those measurements were stated by TooMuchHair and I was able to find some spec sheets on American Power systems website that confirmed those sizes and I am assuming Nations 280XP alternator are the same measurements.

To get the engine RPM's to read correctly on the Cerbo Gx, I would have to change the drive pulley size to 230mm which is much larger then the actual size of my drive pulley. I decided to input the correct pulley sizes and have the RPMS off a bit then to fudge the pulley size to get the RPMs spot on. The difference is the RPM readings probably has to do with the OBD reading versus RPMs sensing via the stator wire.

You can see below how I configure the wakespeed, the results on the Cerbo Gx and live data from my OBD.


IMG_2282.JPGIMG_2281.JPGIMG_2280.JPG
 

hdaniels

Well-known member
Find some additional info that the alternator pulley size could possibly be 48mm instead of 52mm and some alternators have 16 poles as well. So still at a loss on the specs for the Nations 280XP.

Can anyone answer these three questions regarding Nations 280XP 3 belt dual alternator for Sprinter Van:

1. Diameter of the Nations 280XP alternator drive pulley?
2. Diameter of the motor pulley for the alternator?
3. How many poles does the Nations 280XP alternator have?

I have sent these questions to Nations several times without a reply from them. Called several times and always I am told Adam will need to respond to my email which has not happened in several months and several emails. My set-up is already installed making it difficult to get an accurate measurement of the pulley sizes. It would be nice to get an accurate measurement to calibrate the WS500 tachometer. If anyone has a chance to make measurements before their install it would be much appreciated. Still don't know how to figure out how many poles an alternator has.
 
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mikecol

Active member
Can anyone answer these three questions regarding Nations 280XP 3 belt dual alternator for Sprinter Van:

1. Diameter of the Nations 280XP alternator drive pulley?
2. Diameter of the motor pulley for the alternator?
3. How many poles does the Nations 280XP alternator have?
I wanted the same info for long time. Posted my guesses a while back: https://sprinter-source.com/forums/index.php?threads/90232/post-1001549

Hard to measure but guessed 2" and 7.5" (50.8mm and 190.5mm). Not confident in these numbers but at least wanted to you have what I was thinking.
 

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