B+ motorhomes
I just bought a Trail Lite B+ 211s with 8.1 Chevy engine. This is my fifth motorhome (others range from an old 20' Vagabond, and three Winnegagos, from 19 to 32'. This vehicle is fantastic. I am...
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Upon our arrival back to Illinois from a trip out east, I noted that the digital voltmeter for the inverter read 10.6 volts with the engine off. This surprised me since we had been driving about 9 hours. I roughly calculated the totals of the chassis/coach and the inverter loads (going down the interstate in nasty cold weather). I came up with approximately 85 amps. I believe the E450 has a 115 amp alternator. Assuming inefficiencies in the wiring, alternator, and inverter I guessed that there must not have been enough spare amps to maintain the coach batteries. On the entire 6 day trip I found that I could never fully recharge the batteries either through the alternator or the Parralax 7300 with 110V connected.
In a previous test I did on the Parralax 7300, it was putting 11 amps into the batteries at 12.2 volts after 30 minutes. (It started at 30 amps and quickly dropped before it lined out at 11.0). That means that it would take 9 hours to replace the amps withdrawn from the batteries and that was without any other 12 volt loads. I also read the Parralax FAQ and it had pretty much stated that I would get the results that I did but indicated that the design recharge rate and methodology was to protect everything else connected on the 12 volt system. I say that's baloney, it's just a cheap charger.
I checked out Xantrex (sp?) and a charger like the TrueCharge+40 smart charger delivers it's full rated output for the entire bulk charge. It does this by frequently stopping the charge and checking the battery voltage to determine when to go into the next stage. The 90% charge time is 3 hours for two 100 amp batteries discharged to 50%.
Since we don't want to change the way we travel, we'll need either a 220amp replacement alternator ($300 to $550), or the TrueCharge+40 (approx $350), or both! (Are you listening darling?)
In a previous test I did on the Parralax 7300, it was putting 11 amps into the batteries at 12.2 volts after 30 minutes. (It started at 30 amps and quickly dropped before it lined out at 11.0). That means that it would take 9 hours to replace the amps withdrawn from the batteries and that was without any other 12 volt loads. I also read the Parralax FAQ and it had pretty much stated that I would get the results that I did but indicated that the design recharge rate and methodology was to protect everything else connected on the 12 volt system. I say that's baloney, it's just a cheap charger.
I checked out Xantrex (sp?) and a charger like the TrueCharge+40 smart charger delivers it's full rated output for the entire bulk charge. It does this by frequently stopping the charge and checking the battery voltage to determine when to go into the next stage. The 90% charge time is 3 hours for two 100 amp batteries discharged to 50%.
Since we don't want to change the way we travel, we'll need either a 220amp replacement alternator ($300 to $550), or the TrueCharge+40 (approx $350), or both! (Are you listening darling?)
