battery charging when boon docking

You can buy an awful lot of solar for the cost of a generator. They are smelly noisy and expensive to run. Solar on a diy is under $1 per watt. There after costs are zero.

Solar works great at night or when it's cloudy, unlike a generator which works best in bright sunlight.

Or something like that.

PopBeavers wrote:

The consensus was to use the generator in the morning to bring the charge up to 80 percent with the generator. Then let the solar panels do whatever they could do.

Using the generator to charge to a level higher than 80 percent is a waste of gas for the generator. It will take too long to top off the batteries using the generator. The solar panels at least have no operating cost.

Of course, you need to have a way to measure when you have reached the 80 percent mark.

PopBeavers is correct.
without unnecessarily spending a lot of money, this is about it...
solar.

but before the solar array, a good quality multi-stage converter/charger hsould be installed to give the generator and the batteries the best chance to do their job.... a properly sized solar array is unquestionably the best upgrade a chronic boondocker could do for themselves and their RV batteries...

“For us the portable inverter generator makes best sense.”

But not for the RVers next to you trying to enjoy a quiet afternoon and early evening.

Where are folks going to get 1500 watts of solar installed for under $1000? Might be worth a drive to get that deal.

Veebyes wrote:
You can buy an awful lot of gas for the price of a good solar system. Solar does not work too well if you are in the trees.

Concur !

Veebyes wrote:
8 years ago we tossed the cheap & nasty converter charger & installed a programmable 3 stage inverter charger.

DEFINITELY the way to go ! I like the Samlex inverter charger because they have a built in transfer switch. All wiring goes to the inverter charger; shore power, generator, solar charge controller and battery bank and it handles which source to use for delivery.

Connect you DC breaker panel directly to your battery bank.

Without getting into the solar/genny wars, I'll just say that most people are going to want a generator, even if they also have solar.

I've never felt the need to have a charger other than my converter. The battery bank will only take juice so fast, and a converter can do that as well as a stand-alone charger. You want a GOOD converter. Progressive Dynamics is a good one.

Two or even 3 separate sessions of charging over the day, does a far better job that 1 session of equal total time.

Start charging before the batteries need it, as in, the very first day of boondocking. It is more efficient to keep the batteries at a high SOC, than it is to bring them up from a low SOC.

I enjoy following a schedule of genny charging. Time it around other things that are going to need AC, like cooking, TV, and showers. Showers are so much better when the pump is running on 14.4v instead of 12.x.

GordonThree wrote:
Where are folks going to get 1500 watts of solar installed for under $1000? Might be worth a drive to get that deal.

Self installed was the comment.
5x 300w panels = $780 at Solarblvd.com
45amp 48v mppt controller =$470
I think $1 per watt was mentioned so this allows another $250 for wire and supplies.

We run our Honda EU2000I in the morning for a half hour to an hour while we are drinking coffee (the wife needs her Keurig) and then anytime we want to use the microwave during the rest of the day. We never have issues of low batteries

Solar, my 520 watt/240 amp hour system cost me $2300 DIY. Doesn't require a generator at all and we watch TV, have lights on, furnace runs off and on all night, charge 2 cell phones, charge laptop, run 12v cell signal booster and wifes CPAP runs all night. Batteries are down to 70-80% by morning and back to 100% by 2:00 pm.