Voltage Regulator / Limiter Recommendaitons?

Howard70

Adventurer
I need to install a voltage regulator (actually a limiter) in the line feeding power to our Webasto Dualtop Heater. Needs to be adjustable or set to clip voltage at 14.4 volts and handle 65 watts (about 6 amps). Any recommendations?

The problem we have is an interesting one. Our house battery bank is two Mastervolt AGM batteries charged with solar via a Blue Sky Energy Charge controller. The charge controller has been programed for temperature compensation of the batteries per the Mastervolt specifications. On really cold days (when the batteries are below 20 degrees F) the voltage to them can reach 15 volts. The Webasto has a high voltage cut off set at 14.5 volts (not adjustable). So the furnace shuts off on sunny cold days when the solar system is really cranking into the batteries. Tech support at Webasto suggests installing the voltage limiter so that the batteries can be optimally charged but the voltage to the Webasto won't trip the shut off.

Howard
 

Mwilliamshs

Explorer
Voltage limiter? Ohm's law will tell you a voltage limiter is a resistor, either purchased as a resistor or just an undersized wire for its load, voltage drop sound familiar? That's the old-school way of doing it. Let's look at that first. So, resistors...Those do a good job of lowering voltage and there are very good quality, inexpensive resistors available (blower motor resistors come to mind) but they're terribly inefficient. They'll turn your hard-earned battery power into wasteful heat (but not enough to be useful) with no benefit except letting your furnace run when it otherwise wouldn't. You can do some research/testing and determine the current draw of your furnace and the actual maximum voltage it sees (like put the battery temp sensor in an ice bath and see how high the voltage AT THE FURNACE itself actually goes) then determine what exactly you need to do. If a resistor's wasteful nature doesn't bother you I'd price blower motor resistors at a parts store for a variety of very common (thus inexpensive and readily available) applications like American fullsize pickups (I'd bet 87-96 Ford F-series are among the cheapest and can attest to their robustness, having replaced 1 after 210,000 miles of constant use strictly on the medium-high setting). These are usually 3 or 4 resistors on a single circuit board with spade connectors. Connecting one lead to the constant input and then moving the other from High (no resistance) to medium-high or medium or low-medium or low (high resistance) could give you selectable control over the line voltage for under $20 I think. Hit a junkyard (or buy new at the parts store) and get the blower control switch and knob and you'd have a slick little adjustable voltage setup. Might take a few minutes with a calculator and volt-meter but I'm certain I could MacGuyver it up and bet anyone else could too! You probably have ~15 volts coming into the furnace at worst-case-scenario and need <14.5 volts (call it 14.0 to have a little wiggle room) and let's say (because I don't actually know) that your furnace pulls between 15-20 amps total (blower, control board, etc) you're looking for a ~20 watt load. You want some cushion in wattage here so you don't burn up the resistor but the load (resistance) needs to be fairly spot on which is why I think adjustability/selectability is the way to go, especially since your input voltage varies with temperature.

In that vein, why not just use a potentiometer with an inline voltmeter? If the gauge says you're at 14.49 and your furnace cuts out at 14.5 just turn the voltage down to 14.0 or if it says 12.8 and your furnace shuts off at 12.5 you could turn it up a little.

I personally have successfully used a solid-state no-load flasher to allow a low setting on some heated motorcycle grips by using the flasher as a pulse-width-modulator [pwm] (on...off...on...off...on...like a blinker, get it?) on the low setting and wired direct from battery to grips for the high-setting. This allows me to warm but not burn my hands depending on which gloves I wear without wasting my bike's limited electrical power with resistors. PWM controllers are available in a variety of capacities (current ratings) and may or may not work for your application...I don't know what the voltage is running within the Webasto but if it's a computer or thermostat the on/off/on probably won't work like it might with a blower or fuel pump.

That last little bit was getting KINDA techy, the PWM via flasher kinda bridges the gap of low-tech and new-school. If you're into technology though you could put an Arduino controller in the mix and have a fully automatic system that regulates your furnace input voltage to within a very narrow range constantly. You could dial back the techyness a bit with a transistor instead of a smart controller but that requires some discussion beyond what you're likely to want.

So, tell me what you want and I'll be happy to help. Low tech, medium, or high???
 

Mwilliamshs

Explorer
Very good! 12A/100w max output is the stumbling block but I'm very unfamiliar with these Webasto appliances and that may be more than enough. Bucks are cool but can cause interference issues with sensitive electronics and generally send RF noise through anything. Not saying that makes it unsuitable, just that it's something to consider. Nice find, DWH

Also, see the pair of big heatsinks on there? Heat = Inefficient.

Finally, that tiny brass screw in the blue block must be adjusted each time input voltage varies, or in this case, every time the battery temperature changes from 70° (or whatever the OPs battery charger/solar controller uses for default STC). Not super convenient, compared to say a big 4 position knob...anybody know if the Webasto has a low voltage cutoff?
 
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dwh

Tail-End Charlie
OP said 65w. If he dials it down .6v from 15v to 14.4v then when the input voltage drops it won't matter. LVD won't matter either unless he's a battery abuser like me, but I'd bet the Webasto has LVD. Not that he's likely to ever need it, running AGMs with solar, I'd bet he doesn't go below 50% DoD.

And the heat sinks - bleh, who cares. Even if it's only 80% efficient, he's still only losing 13w - and that only when the heater is running anyway.
 

theksmith

Explorer
i just ordered this DC-DC regulator/converter for a project: http://amzn.to/1HpynWJ

the specs say it should work for you - it's actually a wide-input buck/boost converter with an adjustable output in the range you need. i don't know for sure if it lives up to it's specs or not, but for the cost it might be worth a shot. it's made in china and sold on Amazon by RioRand and DROK, and also on eBay by a few sellers.

41vqHeLiB7L.jpg


a thought - with this one, you'd want some sort of low voltage cut-off monitoring voltage directly on the batteries... since this is a step-down AND step-up device, your heater probably would run off it till the batteries were brought down so far that they might never recover (at night, when not solar charging).
 

DiploStrat

Expedition Leader
May be an Easier Way

I have a Blue Sky solar controller and a Webasto Dual Top on Ndeke Luka. (http://diplostrat.org)

I addressed the problem by simply setting the maximum charge voltage to 14.9v using the IPN Pro remote controller. If you don't have an IPN Pro it is available from Blue Sky dealers like AM Solar and an easy install.

This might solve your problem. http://www.amsolar.com/home/amr/page_189_39/blue_sky_ipn_pro_remote_meter.html

Based on a year of using this in parallel with a Bogart Tri Metric, it can save you the cost of the Tri Metric as well and it is temperature compensated.
 

Howard70

Adventurer
Thanks!

Thanks everyone for the suggestions! You folks are quick. I'll try to get some more detailed responses soon,

Howard
 

DiploStrat

Expedition Leader
Howard, you may know this already, but the Webasto Dual Top is very sensitive to water inlet pressure. It needs to be limited to a very precise pressure, about one half that of normal, US RV water pumps. If the inlet pressure is not limited and if you are at altitude, you risk to blow an "O" ring and have a leak. As much of New Mexico has a bit of altitude, I thought that I should share.
 

Mwilliamshs

Explorer
65 watts at 15 volts = 4.333 amps but 65 watts at 12 volts = 5.416 amps. At say 30% duty cycle in cold weather that's about 8AH/day you'll waste running the furnace on 12v vs 15. That's just in the power conversion and doesn't include power losses at the buck/resistor/etc. I know those aren't prefect numbers, just an illustration. In temperatures cold enough to raise charge voltage to 15 your furnace will be running more and whatever means of lowering line voltage to the furnace you use will be working more and AH can add up quickly that way. Just something to be mindful of. Running DC appliances at higher voltage is more efficient unless you're expending energy to create that higher voltage (voltage boosting regulator) but expending energy to lower voltage (resistance) is doubly inefficient. Burning energy to lower the voltage which raises amp draw thus burning even more energy is a wasteful cycle. Just something to keep in mind. Lowering peak charge voltage on the solar setup sounds like the best option to me at this point, especially if you have mppt control.
 
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Howard70

Adventurer
Thanks again

Thanks for all of the great input. Here are some thoughts:

Mwilliamshs - your initial proposals were innovative and knowledgeable. I'm after a set it and leave it solution as the situation is only a problem when we aren't aboard to reset the furnace. Plus I'm not nearly as skilled at confidently putting components together as you. Our house battery bank is 540 amp hours and the solar system is about 420 watts, so we rarely approach a 50% discharge. If we needed to spend 8 - 15 amp hours a day we could handle it, but I'm leaning towards reducing the peak charge voltage as you and DiploStrat ultimately suggested.

Dwh - Thanks for the link and ideas. After reading some of the other replies I'm apprehensive about the RF noise potential. We have had some problems in that regard already!

Theksmith - Thanks for that link also. That's a nice, compact unit. As I mentioned above I'll probably go with adjusting the peak charge voltage from the solar controller.

DiploStrat - Thanks for the suggestions. I am able to program our Blue Sky Energy controller via their Universal Control Module (http://www.blueskyenergyinc.com/products/details/ucm), that's how I've adjusted the charge parameters to meet Mastervolt specs. I would like to use the INP Pro Remote Display and may shift to that in the future. Currently we're running their regular remote display and switching would require a complex refit of our control panels as the two displays take different sized openings and we've maxed out the available real estate in that section of the cabin! I didn't know of the water pressure issues and I appreciate the warning! We have a low pressure system so I hope we are OK, but I'll try to look into that. Initially I was reluctant to use the Blue Sky Energy controller's ability to reduce the peak charging power. In other vehicles and boats I've found that batteries last nearly forever if you place their charging/discharging parameters above all other considerations and pamper them. So I wanted to take full advantage of the temperature compensation, especially in really cold conditions where batteries are stressed. However, I've come around to your solution as it is simple and efficient. I had thought I'd need to reduce the peak charge to 14.4 volts, but Mwilliamshs point of measuring the voltage at the furnace and your success with setting to 14.9 volts suggest I might only need to "lose" 0.3 - 0.4 volts off the top end, so I'll give that a go.

Thanks again,
Howard
 

DiploStrat

Expedition Leader
I have 600Ah of AGM batteries, so you may be sure that I worship at the Handy Bob altar of high voltage. That said, set the max voltage to 15v and see what happens. If that doesn't work, go to 14.9v, etc. All you will do is slow down your charge rate; you will not prevent the batteries from reaching a full charge.

In re. the Dual Top. Roadtrek use a Dereve 1231.(Model WRP2) http://www.dereve.co.uk/Valve-Data-Sheets/Pressure Regulator WRP2.pdf

Not available in the US, you can reach out to:
Dan@bonut.co.uk for more information. This is the unit that I have on my Tiger.
 

Howard70

Adventurer
Update

I adjusted the maximum voltage allowed via the Blue Sky Energy Solar Controller to 15.0 or 14.9 volts (can't remember now exactly which it was) and that seemed to have solved the problem.

Thanks for all of the suggestions,

Howard
 

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