Sterling smart charger

With the combination of a Sterling alternator regulator and a Duogen wind-and-water turbine, I seem to have the ideal arrangement. The Duogen in water mode keeps batteried fully charged on passage, so the Sterling has a back-up role.
 
"Smart", external regulators will give you more available battery capacity with a decrease in the life of both batteries and alternators. If one's boat is such a glutton for electricity, far kinder to the aforementioned components to fit a wind or towed generator or PV panels.
The easy way out is to fit more battery capacity whilst you're at it.
And if they go wrong - it becomes very expensive in melted alternators and boiled batteries.
Though I've had an external controller for the last 23 years, I've disconnected it, because at this time of year, in Greece, it's totally redundant. 328 watts of PV panel make sure of that.

As OleWill says, the smart regulator makes most sense in those boats which only use their engines for short periods - even then it needed 4 hrs of motoring for my smart controller to get my batteries fully charged, before the PV panels were fitted.
 
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As I installed a second fridge on my Bdeneteau 393, I beefed up my battery bank to 510 amps. This meant that I was running my engine too often for the price of fuel here in Turkey. I had a Sterling Pro B regulator fitted. On starting my engine immediately after, the alternator burnt out. I attributed this to incorrect fitting by an inexperienced mechanic. I then had a new Volvo 9i0 amp alternator fitted, and the Sterling job redone by boat electricians. the alternator cut out intermittently but would work normally if I turned off the engine and restarted. Finally it completely failed and I have had to disconnect the Sterling reg and refit my old alternator.

I have had protracted e mail correspondence with Charles Sterling who has blamed inadequate ventilation or battery levels too low. The ventilation in my engine bay includes a 4inch duct behind the alternator (as he recommended) and I was running the engine with the fire extinguisher plug removed for additional venting. My batteries had been checked recently and were Ok.the alternator failed after only 20 minutes and I had been on shore power for 2 days prior to departure.Has anyone else had similar problems with this KIt?
 
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