Charging the batts__Less noise to get the job done.

Hi Fisherman,

And you get to change the oil every 100 hours, and pay for fuel (currently $5.269 per US gallon here) and carry spare fuel, and fill it with fuel, and have it run out of fuel at 2 a.m. and carry it from place to place, and worry about it developing feet (and disappearing). Also, sooner or later, it will require replacement. You also get to pull start it. Don't try that in truly cold weather. You also get to worry about keeping the battery banks charged between trips. Probably you get to replace the house batteries on a much more regular basis.

Most likely the "turnip next over" has a poorly installed and under recommended size wattage system, with an inadequate number of amp-hours of battery bank. Send him to us here, and we can help him optimize what he has, and make recommendations for an upgrade.

Personally, I run out of fresh water before I run out of 12 volt power or 120 power. BTW I've spent twice as much on generators as I did on my solar system. The generators are "long gone" and the solar system just keeps on trucking.

Lots of sun in TX. At least I tried to also help with the actual question.

smkettner wrote:
For the price of the Honda you can easily have a perfectly silent solar charging system.

When it's cloudy, solar is not efficient, when it's raining, it's even less efficient. When it's not sunny out like night time, it doesn't put out Jack S. If your camped with tree cover, birds dump on it. I like my Honda much better than the turnip next over that complains why his massive panel can't keep up.

The Honda on eco is less noise than when running full, but the way the eco works is that the engine revs up as needed to run the load, so it can be just as loud as with the eco turned off, depending.

Even so, the Honda at full revs is very quiet compared with those low cost generators.

Now define "less noise." You can have a high amp charger that wants more watts (VA really) for the first stage of charging, then amps taper, with the Honda getting quieter as amps taper. The louder part at first being short in time depending on the battery bank size and initial SOC just how short.

Or, you can go with a low amp charger that runs a long time to do the recharge but at a quieter sound level the whole time.

I use a Honda 3000i on eco with my 100 amp PowerMax converter and the gen does not make much noise over idle when doing the 100 amps.

Which raises another idea that the bigger size gen will stay closer to idle on eco than the smaller gen with the same load? So you might choose the 2000 instead of the 1000 even if the 1000 can handle it. I do not have any idea how much difference in noise there would be in that example though.

I always use 14.4VDC to charge my three 85AH battery bank. NO matter how much current I have available when charging my battery bank, it only draws around 52-53 AMPS when I first start up and then starts dropping off in current as time goes on. My batteries determine how much current they are going to draw. Not how much current I have available from the charger...

With this in mind I need to only have a 55-60AMP charger...

Just my thoughts
Roy Ken

This much: 400/13

Old & Slow wrote:
How much 12v charging can be accomplished with just 400w ?

The complete answer to your question is dependent upon your charger and battery SOC...
But with a high quality PFC charger, a discharged battery and a hypothetical 400W ac source you could theoretically charge at nearly 30A.

smkettner wrote:
For the price of the Honda you can easily have a perfectly silent solar charging system.

Ditto!


Cheers,
Mark

Honda 1000 will put out 1000va for 30 minutes and 900va continuous in eco mode.
This translates to about 40 amps max into the battery. For quieter operation go with 15 or 20 amp charger so the generator will idle down a bit.

For the price of the Honda you can easily have a perfectly silent solar charging system.