14 volt tv and the inverter squealing.
My Cambria has a 14 volt/35W TV in the bedroom.(typical power 18W) It is powered by a Samsung ac/dc adapter ( 35w) and that is plugged into a Wagan Elite 400W pro dc to ac pure sine inverter. Now...
Forum Discussion
I like my OTC4619 hydrometer as it has the thermometer on the lower portion which says how much to add or subtract for electrolye temperature. Just give it some time to react to electrolyte temperature which is usually hotter on the middle cells of the battery. The EZ red style of plastic hydrometers I found to be wildly imprecise and have unrepeatable results, bubbles or no bubbles sticking to the needle/float.
A Digital voltmeter is many fold better than the idiot lights provided, and while some might say that tenths of a volt are plenty to gauge battery state of charge, I bought a Drok voltmeter with 3 decimal places, and it is very interesting to see voltage drop when adding the load of a 0.08 amp LED bulb, and feel a person wanting to learn solely how much battery they have left, can get away with just this. Flip
various loads on and off, watch voltmeter respond.
That said while a digital voltmeter is many fold better, knowing voltage alone is not nearly as enlightening as knowing how much amperage is flowing at that voltage, whether in discharge or recharge.
One might see 12.02v and freak out, but if they see 12.02v under a 30 amp load, well that voltage held is respectable for that load, depending of course on the total battery capacity. 12.02v under a 0.7 amp load, and one is likely well below 50% and should think about recharging fairly soon, if possible, or at least minimize loads on the battery until recharging can be started.
Likewise on charging, one might see 14.7v and say Oh my batteries are fully charged, but the batteries might be accepting 45 amps at 14.7v, and thus be NOwhere near fully charged, or they might be only accepting 1.2 amps at 14.7v, indicating they are indeed fully charged or nearly so.
So as important as the voltmeter, is the ammeter in my opinion.
No an Amp hour counting battery monitor, is even more enlightening, but these can also be misleading if they are not zeroed occassionally when the batteries are known full. I take my % remaining screen with 100 grains of salt and look more at teh Ah from full as 90% accurate, 80% of the time. What i really determine full charge at is amps accepted at absorption voltage. With the help of the Ah counting battery monitor, I can also determine if my AGm is seemingly getting lazy, which it seems to do with light overnight discharges and low and slow solar only recharges. A mucch deeper discharge followed by a high amp recharge until amps taper to 0.5% of capacity is then required to restore expected performance. While I cannot say all lead acid batteries are similar, I do think the occassional deeper discharge and a higher amp recharge will smack them to attention and better voltage retention. That's an Opinion though, I've not really deep cycled a flooded battery and monitored it closely since I got the adjustable voltage charging tools, and experience i now have with my AGM.
As far as keepng the chassis battery up, I would want all the parasitic loads which are on the chassis battery removed, but for the engine computer. but rewiring those loads to house batteries can be a daunting task, and much simpler is to do as you have done which is to just hook a charging source to the chassis battery, since you can plug in. Instead of plugging in the maintenance 'smart' charger, with a new converter with more trustworthy voltage stages, you could simply hook up a parallellig cable to keep chassis battery at same voltage as house batteries when plugged in. BFL13 says he has done this with a dual ended cord with ciggy plugs.
Somw might recommedn solar for the chassis battery in this situation, but if it can be drained to dead in 10 days by parasitic loads, well then it will still be cycled overnight to some degree, and chassis starter batteries do not like being cycled, so best to prevent it, especially since you can plug in and prevent ANY discharge from occurring overnight.
I hate Ciggy plug connectors with the white hot passion of a thousand suns, but still employ them, in non critical tasks, and they never are asked to pass more than 20 watts. Ubiquitous and convenient do not mean they are a good product though. Horrid design really.
As far as specific products/brands, I will no longer recommend anything I have no personal experience with. I think the proclivities of humans to assign quality or lack there of, based solely on the opinions of others' that they have read on the internet, is one reason so many products never live up to their marketing claims, and why marketing departments have been expanded into dishonest liar departments, while the actual engineering of the product has been kneecapped, for maximum profit, quality function and longevity be damned.
Misleading marketing should be punished, in my opinion, and products destinned for a quick trip to the landfill is a huge issue, or will be for the next generations.
A Digital voltmeter is many fold better than the idiot lights provided, and while some might say that tenths of a volt are plenty to gauge battery state of charge, I bought a Drok voltmeter with 3 decimal places, and it is very interesting to see voltage drop when adding the load of a 0.08 amp LED bulb, and feel a person wanting to learn solely how much battery they have left, can get away with just this. Flip
various loads on and off, watch voltmeter respond.
That said while a digital voltmeter is many fold better, knowing voltage alone is not nearly as enlightening as knowing how much amperage is flowing at that voltage, whether in discharge or recharge.
One might see 12.02v and freak out, but if they see 12.02v under a 30 amp load, well that voltage held is respectable for that load, depending of course on the total battery capacity. 12.02v under a 0.7 amp load, and one is likely well below 50% and should think about recharging fairly soon, if possible, or at least minimize loads on the battery until recharging can be started.
Likewise on charging, one might see 14.7v and say Oh my batteries are fully charged, but the batteries might be accepting 45 amps at 14.7v, and thus be NOwhere near fully charged, or they might be only accepting 1.2 amps at 14.7v, indicating they are indeed fully charged or nearly so.
So as important as the voltmeter, is the ammeter in my opinion.
No an Amp hour counting battery monitor, is even more enlightening, but these can also be misleading if they are not zeroed occassionally when the batteries are known full. I take my % remaining screen with 100 grains of salt and look more at teh Ah from full as 90% accurate, 80% of the time. What i really determine full charge at is amps accepted at absorption voltage. With the help of the Ah counting battery monitor, I can also determine if my AGm is seemingly getting lazy, which it seems to do with light overnight discharges and low and slow solar only recharges. A mucch deeper discharge followed by a high amp recharge until amps taper to 0.5% of capacity is then required to restore expected performance. While I cannot say all lead acid batteries are similar, I do think the occassional deeper discharge and a higher amp recharge will smack them to attention and better voltage retention. That's an Opinion though, I've not really deep cycled a flooded battery and monitored it closely since I got the adjustable voltage charging tools, and experience i now have with my AGM.
As far as keepng the chassis battery up, I would want all the parasitic loads which are on the chassis battery removed, but for the engine computer. but rewiring those loads to house batteries can be a daunting task, and much simpler is to do as you have done which is to just hook a charging source to the chassis battery, since you can plug in. Instead of plugging in the maintenance 'smart' charger, with a new converter with more trustworthy voltage stages, you could simply hook up a parallellig cable to keep chassis battery at same voltage as house batteries when plugged in. BFL13 says he has done this with a dual ended cord with ciggy plugs.
Somw might recommedn solar for the chassis battery in this situation, but if it can be drained to dead in 10 days by parasitic loads, well then it will still be cycled overnight to some degree, and chassis starter batteries do not like being cycled, so best to prevent it, especially since you can plug in and prevent ANY discharge from occurring overnight.
I hate Ciggy plug connectors with the white hot passion of a thousand suns, but still employ them, in non critical tasks, and they never are asked to pass more than 20 watts. Ubiquitous and convenient do not mean they are a good product though. Horrid design really.
As far as specific products/brands, I will no longer recommend anything I have no personal experience with. I think the proclivities of humans to assign quality or lack there of, based solely on the opinions of others' that they have read on the internet, is one reason so many products never live up to their marketing claims, and why marketing departments have been expanded into dishonest liar departments, while the actual engineering of the product has been kneecapped, for maximum profit, quality function and longevity be damned.
Misleading marketing should be punished, in my opinion, and products destinned for a quick trip to the landfill is a huge issue, or will be for the next generations.
