Charging 4 12-volt house batteries with portable charger
The new-to-us coach has 4 12-volt house batteries in parallel. Our uses for it will include boondocking for weeks at a time in spring and fall in the mountains. It has a couple of solar panels (100 watts total), but I don’t know how far those will go in replacing the relatively small amount of battery power we will use without shore power.
The inverter will charge at 100 amps, but the genset takes a half-gallon of propane per hour. Aside from charging batteries, we would not often need to run the genset. And running the genset will shorten our stay due to the limited amount of propane aboard.
I have a little Yamaha ef1000is generator which will run for many hours on a small amount of gasoline. I just bought a Black & Decker VEC1093DBD 4/10/20/40 amp automatic charger to use with the little Yamaha to provide extra charging for the batteries, rather than running the big propane genset if the solar cannot keep up.
Question: Does it matter where in the parallel circuits I attach the portable charger cables? I find that the existing cables are routed as follows: Red to battery 1, then battery 2, then cables from 2 to both batteries 3 and 4. Black to battery 4, then 3, then 2, then 1. The closest terminals to hook the clamps for the portable chargers are on batteries 2 and 3. Batteries 1 and 4 are in the back of the drawer.
In order to treat the batteries kindly in recharging, can I attach my charger clamps at batteries 2 and 3, in the front half of the drawer, or should I bother to reach to the back to charge at the same terminals the built-in charger uses, on batteries 1 and 4?
Thanks,
Wayne
The inverter will charge at 100 amps, but the genset takes a half-gallon of propane per hour. Aside from charging batteries, we would not often need to run the genset. And running the genset will shorten our stay due to the limited amount of propane aboard.
I have a little Yamaha ef1000is generator which will run for many hours on a small amount of gasoline. I just bought a Black & Decker VEC1093DBD 4/10/20/40 amp automatic charger to use with the little Yamaha to provide extra charging for the batteries, rather than running the big propane genset if the solar cannot keep up.
Question: Does it matter where in the parallel circuits I attach the portable charger cables? I find that the existing cables are routed as follows: Red to battery 1, then battery 2, then cables from 2 to both batteries 3 and 4. Black to battery 4, then 3, then 2, then 1. The closest terminals to hook the clamps for the portable chargers are on batteries 2 and 3. Batteries 1 and 4 are in the back of the drawer.
In order to treat the batteries kindly in recharging, can I attach my charger clamps at batteries 2 and 3, in the front half of the drawer, or should I bother to reach to the back to charge at the same terminals the built-in charger uses, on batteries 1 and 4?
Thanks,
Wayne
