I want to charge a deep cycle battery with a solar charge controller and dual battery isolator powered by the car alternator. The dual battery isolator will provide the most charging power when driving and the solar will help to keep the battery topped up when camping.
As I am feeding two power sources into one battery do I need diode oring to avoid damaging the two different chargers?
Below is a the wiring diagram of a 12V system. The Dual Battery Isolator will provide up to 120A and solar up to 10A. So I thought I put strong Schottky diodes in protect each charger.
Best Answer
The Schottky diodes are probably not required the battery isolator already is a diode or the equivalent of a diode and the output of the solar charger can handle the charging voltage as provided by the alternator.
The solar part of the system should already have a diode in it somewhere to prevent reverse flow into the panel.
The larger problem is that 'smart' solar chargers sometimes do not play well with other charging sources, they get confused by the voltage changes caused in your case by the alternator. This will not cause damage but could cause the solar charger to operate at less than its peak performance. You will need to check the specifications for your charger. if it is a 'dumb' pwm controller without a 3 stage charge algorithm you should be ok.