Field wire Sterling Pro Altc

[Flod]

I hooked up my new Sterling alternator to battery charger today. I plan to use it for my lifepo4 bank. I have both my christec shorepower charger, the master volt solar charger and the alternator B+ connected to the charge in at the Sterling. On my previous installation there was a split charging diode wher the Sterling now is. It had a field wire going to the alternator. This wire I now connected to the field output on the Sterling. This does not work. No charging from the alternator. Tried to wire it straight to Battery positiv and then the ignition alarm started to sound and when I started the engine the alt started charging nicely. So how do I solve this? Am I connecting this cable wrong to the Sterling in any way?

[GordMay]

Power to your regulator should be from your ignition switch, which is "off" when engine off.

[Flod]

Yes this I am aware of but the field wire is according to the Sterling drawing supposed to be connected to a terminal that have the label “field current” and to the ignition. The Sterling acts as a diode. I have two theories:

1. The field current is only supplied by the charger for like the first 30 seconds to kick start the alternator. Since I hooked up my solar charger to the same input those 30 secs is long gone when I Start the engine.
2. The terminal connection on the Sterling have 2 connectors. I was thinking that it only acts as a relay openings this two connections for a short period of time. Then I need to connect one of the terminal connectors to battery positive and the other to field wire

Thoughts?

[GordMay]

Perhaps the Sterling Power Instruction Manuals might help.
☞ https://sterling-power.com/pages/instruction-manuals

[Flod]

Thanks I have read it and connected the wires accordingly (I think) but something is obviously wrong

[Flod]

This is how it looked before I started installing the Sterling. The cables coming into the diode is: Top=House bank, Bottom=start battery, Left=Alternator B+ Right=Alternator field

I have connected the cables to the ports of the Sterling exactly the same House bank, starter battery, alternator field and B+ in. The only change is that I connected the solar charge in to the same connector as alt B+ in and sterling’s negative wire to battery neg.

[Flod]

Ok so I will answer my own question. Found this drawing and realised that the wire I thought was alt field (R) is really alt sense that was used in my previous application to make the alt compensate for the small voltage drop in the diode. It shouldn’t be necessary at all now. I’ll try next weekend to simply disconnect it and hope the alt kicks in