Thanks for the report. I installed an adjustable, too. One of these:

http://bartonharness.com/AdjustableVoltage.html

And tweaked it to 14.5v. This is what my deep-cycle AGM Yellow Optima
aux battery wants for a full charge. See  (See "Car Batteries are not 12
Volts" at http://www.landiss.com/battery.htm , and Optima's charging
specs at http://tinyurl.com/4qem7 ).

Works just fine.

--

Mike "Rocket J Squirrel" Elliott
71 Type 2: the Wonderbus
84 Westfalia: Mellow Yellow ("The Electrical Banana")
KG6RCR

On 9/23/2005 9:06 AM Alistair Bell wrote:

> I have been using a cheap (Bosch knock-off, approx Can$30) adjustable
> voltage reg in my van for 5 months now. It looks just like a normal
> brush/reg combo but with a tiny screw adjustment on it.
>
> I set it for 14.2 volts and it does work. Its holds that voltage (no
> loads) pretty well, only dropping to about 14V when hot. And the unit
> does get hot, whether more than the normal one I can't say. I was
> worried about this heat but the thing keeps working.
>
> I have a small 30 A/hr gel cell (house battery when camping) to be
> charged along with starter battery and that is why I chose the slightly
> higher voltage setting.
>
> When engine is warm I get a reading of 14.1 up at the cig lighter. My
> 160 Watts of low beams drops that to 13.8.
>
>
> Alistair
>
> '82 westy, diesel converted to gas in '94
> http://www.members.shaw.ca/albell/
>