2 chargers connected to one battery bank?

Given that smart chargers vary the voltage throughout the process, and that dumb ones do not, this suggests to me that having both a dumb and a smart charger on the job at the same time would be a bad idea. I can see the smart one throwing 13 volts at the other one that is putting out 12 volts, thus having the lower voltage unit force fed current backwards. Charging a battery charger is not what they were designed to do. I'd anticipate possible overheating and circuit damage.

So I'd say one or the other, mate, but never both.

I upgraded my real old single mode converter/charger to a WFCO 45AMP smart mode converter/charger only to find out I could never get my WFCO unit to go into smart mode charging.

Then I purchased a PD9260C 60AMP smart mode converter/charger but I mounted it stand alone closer to the battery bank. I decided to leave the WF8945 unit in its location in the bottom compartment of the WF series Power Distribution Panel.

I ran a 120VAC connection to the PD9260C from another circuit breaker in my panel.

I most of the time use the PD9260C by just flipping the circuit breaker for this unit and have the WF8945 converter turned off by flipping its circuit breaker.

I only have the brand new WF8945 converter around for back-up purpose. I only have one converter turned ON at a time however I don't think it would harm anything having both of them on. It just didn't seem like having two converter units ON at the same would be a good idea.

You can see where my two converters are installed in this floor plan drawing of my trailer...


This is a schematic diagram of my how my two converters are wired in my setup...


There is some posts on here where a B&D VEC1093DBD smart mode portable battery charger was being used along with the on-board trailer converter/charger to get to full 100% charge state on the batteries quicker.

Roy Ken

Unless the charger is rated at a lower current output than the battery back requires, the battery state of charge (SOC) will determine the current it will accept. So adding chargers will only consume unnecessary energy and add complications.

Use your best charger as the default and reserve the other for a backup. Exercise the backup occasionally. That would be how I would do it.

You can connect similar chargers in paralell but it sounds like the new charge is more advanced so it's probibly not a good idea. Your batterys might be in series-paralell , in which case you can charge each pair with each charger. The problem with that is that banks will not reach full charge at same time which is ok if you wait until both pair are at full charge. Otherwise the lesser charged pair will be unduely stressed under load. You should read for yourself what battery and charger manufactures say about quick charging depleted batteries. Throughing a 100 amp charge on a battery for secounds to replinish the power consumed by say starting an engine has a far different effect than throwing 100amps on a heavyly discharged battery. Esp repeatedly doing it.