Interesting setup — 1160ah at 12v is a serious chunk of storage for a work truck with no solar input. Curious what the charging strategy looks like day-to-day. Are you relying purely on alternator charging, or is there shore power involved when the truck's parked up overnight?
The reason I ask is I've been going back and forth on a similar approach for my shepherd's hut build — debating whether to bother with panels at all given the shading issues on site, and just leaning on a decent DC-DC charger off the vehicle alternator combined with hook-up when available.
A few questions if you don't mind:
- What battery chemistry are you running? LiFePO4 at that capacity would be a very different beast to lead-acid
- Which DC-DC charger are you using? I'd imagine you need something beefy — Victron Orion-TR Smart series perhaps?
- How long does it take to meaningfully replenish after a heavy draw?
- What loads are you running that justified 1160ah specifically?
The sceptic in me wonders whether without solar, a large bank like that risks chronically sitting at partial state of charge if the alternator charging isn't keeping pace with usage — especially if the truck isn't doing long runs regularly. That's apparently one of the main killers of LiFePO4 longevity over time.
Would be useful to see some real-world data from a setup like this — there's plenty of theory floating around but not many people documenting purely alternator-fed large banks in practice.
