welcome back to the channel guys today i'm going to be doing a complete installation video
of the Renogy 50 amp dc to dc charger with mppt
Cayleigh and i have now been traveling around in our van for about five months and it has been
awesome and this charger has been a key component to our solar system which has made things super
easy for us it works fantastic in my unboxing and review video of this product i actually went over
one of the problems that a lot of people have been having online and that's the fact that it'll only
take a maximum of 25 amps from the alternator but i'm going to show you how you can actually
get 50 amps from your alternator don't forget to use the code MADETOTRAVEL at checkout on Renogy
because you'll get five percent off your order i've also taken the time and developed a complete
simple solar guide that is based around this component because i love it so much go ahead
check out the description it's only 14.99 and it outlines everything to do with our solar system
the guide includes a component breakdown a wiring schematic and also a pricing quantity chart so
let's head back and check it out all right guys so this is the setup i have for the controller and i
just wanted to go over all the wiring connections and fuse sizes and also wire sizes just to make
it easier for you to install i also wanted to go over how i installed it so i can get 50 amps
of power from the alternator so started off this first one right up here is the
ground connection it comes up and around and then down basically hooked up to the bus bar
down there the power connection is right here and this hooks up to the positive battery
and comes through a 60 amp fuse and then down to the positive bus bar down here both the
positive and negative connections are two gauge wire and then we jump over to the other side here
and i have the positive connection which goes to the alternator and this runs through a 60 amp fuse
as well and then all the way to my starting battery in the front which i will show you
this guy up here is my positive solar input and this runs up through
to this shut off right here and then up to the roof to the solar panel so this is a key part
of the install it also allows for you to reset the charger if you ever need to do that this
is my positive the negative from the solar panel i actually run right down to my bus bar so you don't
actually have a negative connection on the charger you can run it right to your negative bus bar
the wire size that goes up to my solar panels both the positive and negative are 10 gauge and
the wire that runs to my alternator is 4 gauge the next connection i wanted to talk about is the one
on the side here which is actually hooked up to the ignition wire for a smart alternator but it
doesn't matter if you have a smart alternator or not you should always be connecting this guy
right there the last connection i wanted to go over is actually the RS485 port which i have
running to my bt2 battery monitor which works really well it also allows you you'll notice
there's a white light here it allows you to enter a custom parameter mode for this Renogy controller
which came in really handy since i right now have a can bat battery installed there are different
parameters than your normal Renogy lithium battery so i wanted to enter custom ones right now you'll
also notice that it's in float charge mode so it's actually just topping off my starting
battery right now because there's enough voltage in my solar battery so that's really nice to have
the last connection here is the battery temperature sensor which actually senses
the temperature of the battery and will shut off the charging capabilities if it gets too
cold or too hot mine is uh just sitting on top of the battery right there it's basically just a
little thermometer there the trick to installing this battery charger is hooking up the ignition
wires properly and i'm going to go ahead and show you that if you hook them up wrong when you turn
on your vehicle it won't charge very much off your alternator because the controller is designed to
take 50 from solar and 50 from the alternator so that's why it's super important to install
that shut off on your solar panels so if you want to get that 50 amps from your alternator you just
come back here flick that switch and then you'll be getting 50 amps while driving which is really
nice so i'm going to show you exactly how to hook up that smart alternator ignition wire whatever
you want to call it again it doesn't matter if you have a smart alternator or not you want to
hook this up because that's the only way you'll get full power from your alternator like 45 to
50 amps okay so obviously i have a sprinter t1n and i'm just gonna take this panel off
again underneath the driver's seat and you'll see fuses right there this is where i've ran my smart
ignition wires to you'll see one black and one red so the red one runs to a fuse right here
and the important thing about this view is i don't even know which one it is but you want to
make sure that it's only powered when your vehicle is on so how you do that is you get a volt meter
and you put your volt sensor right along here and you want to make sure that it comes on when the
vehicle's on so if you go through and test your fuses and you'll see 12 volts all the way across
and then you'll get to say this one and then it'll show zero volts when the vehicle is not running
that's what you want and then you're going to go ahead turn your vehicle on test the voltage at the
same spot and get 14 volts that is perfect that's where you want to install your power wire and then
for your negative wire that just runs there's a ground actually located just underneath the seat
and that's where that's hooked up to so it's really easy to do but just make sure
you install that power wire to something that has voltage only when the vehicle is running all right
so i got my phone out here and i'm just going to show you exactly what's going on with the app
okay so we're going to head into the Renogy app right now so
it's not super sunny outside but you can see we have 7.85 amps of solar coming in
right now um my solar batteries are at 13.5 and my starting battery for the vehicle is at 13.1 volts
okay so i'm gonna go ahead and start the vehicle and you guys will see what
happens
so let's just start the vehicle and you can see it reads 14.3 volts now it has to read over
i think it's 14 volts for about 15 seconds until it'll actually start drawing power and you'll see
next to that 14.3 volts the current symbol that will kick in just like you just did so
now it's pulling 24 amps 24.15 amps um and then you can see um in the middle
section where it says where it's talking about my solar battery it's um splitting the current
between solar and the alternator so it's about 35 amps like just under 35 amps basically
and that's the max that you'll get unless you install a shutoff for your solar so i mean this
is still pretty good like unless you're really running low on power and you want to really
charge up your batteries this is still fine like you don't usually have to go back and shut it off
um this is still drawing a lot a lot i kind of like that it pulls um some solar panel because
i don't know it's just easier on the environment it's um it's renewable energy so that's great
you don't actually have to burn fuels to get your power so i kind of like that i wish it um pulled
as much as it could from the solar panels and then the rest would just be pulled from the alternator
like if it was pulling 10 amps from solar then it would pull 40 40 amps from the alternator or
whatever i wish it would just even it out so it's always pulling a max of 50. but um yeah so i'm
going to go ahead and shut off that switch cut off the solar panel and you guys will see what happens
there now we're getting zero volts zero amps from solar panels and our battery is charging at
47 amps so i mean that is proof right there that this charger does work really well you just need
to install a shutoff now you're drawing 50 amps from your alternator so there you have it i hope
you guys enjoyed the video thank you so much for watching good luck with that installation i hope
it goes nice and smooth for you it's a great controller there's just that one flaw renergie
might come out with some new programming that'll solve that issue hopefully be sure to like and
subscribe this video check out the links below if you're interested in that solar guide and use the
discount code made to travel if you're purchasing anything from energy i'll see you in the next one