dry camping

230 Ah is a BIG battery. Sounds more like RC minutes (reserve capacity)

As far as what is better to charge... you will need to post the model and rating of each to compare.

Thanks for the converter correction. I am going to dry camp on my first campout (near here) to see how it goes.

We ran our generator for two hours a day last year to keep our battery up day to day. We don't use a lot of power but the one time I tried just one hour, the battery was lower than I wanted when I checked it that night.
Our trailer came with a cheap 45a converter I believe, so that may have something to do with charging times.

Both methods have advantages. Using the converter/charger is much EASIER as you can also use the 120 volt power for other things while charging. Of course you CAN use it while using your stand alone also but many smart chargers read the battery state of charge to determine the charge rate to be used and if you're converter is also charging the battery state would appear to be fully charged, setting your stand alone to it's minimal charge rate. The fix for this is to disconnect the negative lead while charging. Ultimately it depends on how good your stand alone is compared to how good your converter/charger is and whether you take into account convenience.
Good luck / Skip

It would depend if your converter is a three stage or a trickle charger. My old fifth wheel had a 2amp trickle charger and would take for ever to charge the batteries so I ran my sears charger straight off the generator. My new 5er has the three stage charger and works great with the trailer plugged into the generator. Figure out what kind you have and go from there.

Your battery will charge through the converter. Not inverter. Know the difference. Adding your stand alone charger will speed things up, but be watchful not to recharge at too high an amp feed. If your converter is ,say a 55amp, you should not also use the charger at a high setting. Better to run the genny a little longer than to overheat your battery with a too fast a recharge.

MMarty wrote:
Hey all. We are going to do some dry camping this year. My main concern is battery recharging. I have a 230 amp hour deep cycle battery. Would it be better to plug my stand alone battery charger to the generator and charge the rv batt that way or use the rv inverter with the generator? I should only need to use the genny for about a hour or so during the day for recharge, correct? I'm new to the dry camping thing so all info would be helpful. Thanks.

you can use either your separate battery charger or your trailer's CONVERTER, not inverter, plugged into the generator.
do NOT use the generator's 12v wires to charge the battery, very inefficient.
as far as running a hour to recharge the battery, depends on how low it is.