charging rates

Matt,

What do you have as a meter? I do the voltage thing now and as you pointed out it's pretty iffy.

Bob,

A lot will depend on how much you have drawn down the house bank. If you don't have a monitor (not just a voltmeter) you will never know. While 3~4 hours of driving will do our coach well enough, I have also optimised the system. You are just going to have to try it and see. We have electric refrigeration and we still do alright, but we pretty much only stop for a night and rarely at a crampground.

Your two Gr 27s will do you no favors. When time comes for replacement, switch to a pair of GC2s.

Matt

Thanks for all the good input. Converter has been upgraded to a Parallax 8300 three stage charger. I looked at Progressive Dynamics but that required significant mods to fit. Batteries are two group 27 wet cells. I will also check wire size from the vehicle engine.

Main points learned are that alternator is likely to be quite slow and that it's OK to use the generator while traveling. I'll just experiment to see when I need the generator and when not.

Posted wrong info. Eventually deleted it, claiming it was a "typo" (that word doesn't mean what you think it means) which wasn't supposed to be posted. Shouldn't be a mod if you can't figure out how to not post something.

over my
;)

darsben1 wrote:

MrWizard wrote:

darsben1 wrote:
We have found that if our 2 6 volt batteries are about 1/2 charge a good 4-5 hour trip down the road pretty much tops them off.

You are driving a Motorhome
The op is towing a trailer he will not get the same good results

his signature states 2004 Born Free class c. To me that is a motor home

my second post is the correct one
the one you quoted was not supposed to be posted

did you not read both, and wonder what happening ?

countrykids wrote:
We are planning a fall trip using state and national forest sites that no electrical hookups. Idea is to stay at each site a day or two and move on. Traveling between sites, what battery recharge rate should I expect from the truck and can I boost that by running the RV generator at the same time we are traveling.

Your signature indicates that your RV is a Born Free Class C(?).

We RV the same way in our 2005 Itasca Class C. Our Ford V10 engine's 130 amp alternator will fully recharge - from about 50% discharged - our two large RV batteries in 3-4 hours of driving.

However, the cabling between the alternator and batteries is a large guage and our batteries are AGM. AGM RV batteries charger faster than regular liquid acid batteries. Also, I have replaced the solenoid that automatically connects the RV batteries to the alternator a couple of times as it's contacts slowly degrade over time. Doing this keeps current flow at the maximum possible from the alternator to the RV batteries during recharge. I have a meter on the dash that tells me whenever this solenoid's contacts are getting corroded/eroded.

MrWizard wrote:

darsben1 wrote:
We have found that if our 2 6 volt batteries are about 1/2 charge a good 4-5 hour trip down the road pretty much tops them off.

You are driving a Motorhome
The op is towing a trailer he will not get the same good results

his signature states 2004 Born Free class c. To me that is a motor home

Generator will depend if you have a converter that does a boost voltage at about 14.4 volts. Post the converter model for best answers.

200 watts solar would also go a long way if you will be doing this often.

Depends on the size of the wire between the battery isolator and the batteries

Some give good results, some do not