Battery Charging
2008 Lance Camper 845 - bought new in 2009 ... If I'm driving down the road, does the truck alternator charge my house battery just as it does my truck starting battery. OR, it there a separate b...
Forum Discussion
If you do not do much boondocking the cost of going to lithium is likely not worth it. I have a Northern Lite truck camper and boondock most of the time. So, I went to lithium. If you spend most of your time in campgrounds, your AGM will suit you fine. To answer your questions, your 7 pin plug has a charge line from your truck battery to the house battery. It may not put a lot back there, but it does charge. When your plugged in your power center should be charging your battery as well.
Yeah, if we were still boondocking a lot, or camping back-country with no hookups, we'd go lithium and retrofit for charging it. But we're off the road a lot now, and camping more w/hook-ups, so not as critical for long-term battery power. I was more concerned with going AGM and not having proper in-house charger for it. I didn't want to damage it. But apparently, we can get away with SLA sealed, and get a week or so out of 100Ah battery. We do mostly day stuff, and early bed then up and greet the sun. We have no TV or E-stuff except Cameras, Laptop and phone charging, and propane cooking. In cooler weather, we heat up the Camper - shut heat off - and curl up in our sleeping bags. We can fit only one battery (group 27) in the Lance. Been Lance TC camping for over twenty years with no generator, and about 50% HU and 50% none ... We need a new battery, so exploring options, and don't want to upgrade the battery if our inhouse charger might damage it. We're aging out of long-term cross-country camping, but will never age out of camping completely. We live in Florida now, but spent plenty of time on the west coast, the Sierras and Rockies, and pretty much everywhere in between.
My wife and I have been camping over 30 years and this is the first camper we do mostly boondocking with. Our previous campers had solar, but we used AGM batteries. Even with the AGM we could go 4-5 days without plugging in due to the solar. We didn't have a bunch of electronics and used our laptop if we wanted to watch Netflix. I am a photographer so we would watch our electricity and do our charging in our vehicle before came in for the night. We would wake up with batteries around 60%. Turn everything off and the furnace down, then go hiking. We always came back to full battery. The lithiums allow us to go 3 weeks or more and still have 100% when we get home, due the charging system we put in. We could probably go longer, just haven't needed to. I have had good luck with AGM from battery plus. I use the Duracell brand and their house brand. They all made by East Penn battery; a solid USA made battery. I have also gotten the Duracell from Sam's Club. The big thing is not to take them below 50% very often. So, if you do a quick calculation on your energy needs then you have an idea of what you need. Just double your calculation and get at least that many amp Hour battery. I am pretty sure your 2009 Lance will have a converter/charger built into the power center. So, being plugged in you would be good and charging. If you traveling and want to be sure your alternator is charging your house you can check the size of your alternator and install a Blue Sea Automatic charge relay. They are a straight forward install. It will monitor your vehicle battery and when it is a full charge send everything from the alternator to your house battery. On your vehicle I would check to see if the truck cuts off the power in the 7 way plug. I have a Ford truck and it cuts power to the 7 way with ignition off. I know some Cheverolet do not and can drain your truck battery if you camp to long. I am not sure about Dodge. This is important on truck campers as they are connected all the time.
ya, you camp kind of the same as I do, but I leave the heater going all night as the wife would shoot me if I turend it off haha, I could go about 3 days on 100ish AH if the solar died which is why I looked at the LiFePo4. it is a little smaller than a group 27 (about the same size with the BMS) and has 304AH. I ended up buying the cells and bms and building it myself as at the time the permade were quite expensive. now the price of Lfp cells has been droping even more a persona could do this build for about 500.00US. I know building one isn't for eveyone so a 100AH LiFePo4 can be had as low as 250 US and that one battery will double your "usable" over a group 27 deep cycle.
One more thing I will point out is that, like LiFePo4, an AGM isn't compatable with a normal charger also. while they may both work, they won't get the optimal charge, or in the case of AGM a charger with out a AGM or Adsorbed setting can dammage the battery from to high of voltage being put to the battery. so for me if your getting away from a normal flooded battery you realy should concider changing the charging section of your converter to one that suports the charge you need. most newer ones have and AGM setting and the real new ones also have a Li setting.
