Charging a Battery Bank
I am planning on upgrading my batteries to 4 6v batteries wired in series and parallel to have a 12v system with plenty of Amp Hours. There is a ton of information on how to wire things up but nothing...
Forum Discussion
Two batts at 200AH, a 50-90 is 40% so 80AH, so you are looking at recharging that every day. Approx recharge time for that is
-70 amper 2 hr 10 min
-55 amper 2 hr 20 min
-35 amper 3 hr
70/200 is 35% charging rate, so above that 30% spec for those AGMs but not Lifelines which can take a way higher rate.
You can juggle that but it will be tight, but doable with a 60 amper. Because it will be tight, and you don't know your actual daily, but can control that to fit the circumstances, you will need a battery monitor like the Trimetric. That will show your AH usage as you do it, so you can adjust your 12v usage as required.
It is true that you need the whole scenario to build your system (excellent point that it is a system) Most of us build our systems by trial and error. Not likely to get it right the first time out.
Mainly because once you do try it you learn what you really want to do and every trip you see new things that you could do to modify your system. Renovations!
Don't worry about wasting money buying the wrong things if you think ahead. EG, a 60 amper is not a 120 amper that you might wish you had later, but you can get another 60 amper later and use both of them at once. You can get trapped with the wrong thing for later, but you are ahead already by having a big gen, which avoids that particular limitation.
On the WFCO, you need to see if it works or not by testing at the DC panel where it is connected (with the wires off the battery so there is no 12v from them confusing things). It could be getting no 120v input (breaker or GFCI issue) It could be your battery fuse or disconnect switch if you only check at the battery cables. It should be easy--with shore power on and no batteries, do your DC lights work? Yes? Converter works.
-70 amper 2 hr 10 min
-55 amper 2 hr 20 min
-35 amper 3 hr
70/200 is 35% charging rate, so above that 30% spec for those AGMs but not Lifelines which can take a way higher rate.
You can juggle that but it will be tight, but doable with a 60 amper. Because it will be tight, and you don't know your actual daily, but can control that to fit the circumstances, you will need a battery monitor like the Trimetric. That will show your AH usage as you do it, so you can adjust your 12v usage as required.
It is true that you need the whole scenario to build your system (excellent point that it is a system) Most of us build our systems by trial and error. Not likely to get it right the first time out.
Mainly because once you do try it you learn what you really want to do and every trip you see new things that you could do to modify your system. Renovations!
Don't worry about wasting money buying the wrong things if you think ahead. EG, a 60 amper is not a 120 amper that you might wish you had later, but you can get another 60 amper later and use both of them at once. You can get trapped with the wrong thing for later, but you are ahead already by having a big gen, which avoids that particular limitation.
On the WFCO, you need to see if it works or not by testing at the DC panel where it is connected (with the wires off the battery so there is no 12v from them confusing things). It could be getting no 120v input (breaker or GFCI issue) It could be your battery fuse or disconnect switch if you only check at the battery cables. It should be easy--with shore power on and no batteries, do your DC lights work? Yes? Converter works.
