Battery vs genny questions
Hey all you electrically smarter than me people ... I need some battery help please. 9 days of dry camping. I'm bringing my genny but we're in a State Park, in the middle of 10 families with tents,...
Forum Discussion
Bring a 40 amp battery charger, your WFCO won't get the job done when all it wants to do is absorption charge at 13.7V, when the batteries, when dry camping need 14.4 to 14.7V to fully charge.
You have a 75 amp battery. Since you shouldn't run those batteries below 50%, 37 amps is all you get out of your batteries before you should shut things down, and it's better to recharge them long before they get to 50% discharged.
Best bet is to pull your car in, attach the jumper cables to the battery in your car, then start your car up and let it idle for a half hour to hour or so, every morning.
Or buy a Progressive Dynamics PD9245 Charge Wizard, with the pendant, so you can activate the charge controller to charge in bulk mode at 14.4v and top your batteries up, which is plenty for a single battery.
Do a search here under PD9245 for more detailed information, these charge controllers with a pendant have a great track record for dry camping and getting batteries charged up... the WFCO, not so much, with it's inability to get into bulk mode. It's a charge controller more designed for campgrounds with full hook ups, so it doesn't boil your battery cells dry while hooked up to a pedestal 24/7 for a couple of weeks.
Here was my observation with a single group 24 and a WFCO 8960. I basically had to run my Honda 2000 3 hours first thing in the morning, and 2 hours every evening, while the lights were on, to keep any sort of charge in the battery, the WFCO 8960 was miserable at topping up a single group 24 DC. I basically had to shower with the generator running, and try to do some of my TV at night with the generator running, even though I had an inverter to run the TV off the battery, plus in the morning to get some news, and charge the cell phone battery, as well as laptop.
BTW, since going to a industrial sweeper type battery and solar panels, I have a very lightly used PD 9245 with pendant for sale. PM me if this interests you.
You have a 75 amp battery. Since you shouldn't run those batteries below 50%, 37 amps is all you get out of your batteries before you should shut things down, and it's better to recharge them long before they get to 50% discharged.
Best bet is to pull your car in, attach the jumper cables to the battery in your car, then start your car up and let it idle for a half hour to hour or so, every morning.
Or buy a Progressive Dynamics PD9245 Charge Wizard, with the pendant, so you can activate the charge controller to charge in bulk mode at 14.4v and top your batteries up, which is plenty for a single battery.
Do a search here under PD9245 for more detailed information, these charge controllers with a pendant have a great track record for dry camping and getting batteries charged up... the WFCO, not so much, with it's inability to get into bulk mode. It's a charge controller more designed for campgrounds with full hook ups, so it doesn't boil your battery cells dry while hooked up to a pedestal 24/7 for a couple of weeks.
Here was my observation with a single group 24 and a WFCO 8960. I basically had to run my Honda 2000 3 hours first thing in the morning, and 2 hours every evening, while the lights were on, to keep any sort of charge in the battery, the WFCO 8960 was miserable at topping up a single group 24 DC. I basically had to shower with the generator running, and try to do some of my TV at night with the generator running, even though I had an inverter to run the TV off the battery, plus in the morning to get some news, and charge the cell phone battery, as well as laptop.
BTW, since going to a industrial sweeper type battery and solar panels, I have a very lightly used PD 9245 with pendant for sale. PM me if this interests you.
