Battery Charging
My 5th wheel has a pair of 6 volt batteries and a 3 stage inverter/charger. If I am boondocking and hook up a generator for and hour or so in the morning, would I be better off pluging in a battery...
Forum Discussion
Unplug from the pedestal for the night... in the morning, put a Digital multi meter on your jars and measure the combined voltage without charging. Plug in to your generator, with the Charge controller turned on, and again measure the voltage at the batteries with the charger on, both at start up of charging, and after 3 hours, measure the voltage at the batteries again, with generator still running.
Report back to us what you find for all three steps to measure at, for voltage at the battery terminals in 12Volts.
We are interested in 3 things.
Battery state of charge first thing in the morning, determined by resting voltage with as much electrical load turned off as possible first thing in the morning.
Voltage received at the battery when you first start charging, are you in bulk charging mode or not, with your existing charge controller. Depends on the brand... WFCO's as noted, fail to engage in bulk charging mode, at 14.4 to 14.8 Volts.
Voltage received at the battery after 3 hours, after the batteries should be out of bulk charging mode, and in absorption or bulk charge mode still. Certainly not in float charging mode yet at 13.4 to 13.6V charge rate.
Report back to us what you find for all three steps to measure at, for voltage at the battery terminals in 12Volts.
We are interested in 3 things.
Battery state of charge first thing in the morning, determined by resting voltage with as much electrical load turned off as possible first thing in the morning.
Voltage received at the battery when you first start charging, are you in bulk charging mode or not, with your existing charge controller. Depends on the brand... WFCO's as noted, fail to engage in bulk charging mode, at 14.4 to 14.8 Volts.
Voltage received at the battery after 3 hours, after the batteries should be out of bulk charging mode, and in absorption or bulk charge mode still. Certainly not in float charging mode yet at 13.4 to 13.6V charge rate.
