Charging While Towing
Newbie to the forum here. Looked around a bit and didn't see anything specific so worth a fresh post. We just took our first long trip in my 16ft TT after I installed a new (4)6-volt 460AH system ...
Forum Discussion
mattherrington wrote:
I get it now.
I can be at 13.4V all day in the truck and it's not going to dent my 4 GC2 US Battery bank. Bulk and absorption charge for these batteries is spec'd at 14.7V to final 97% of capacity and then drops to 13.0 for the float. I'm really sending a trickle back there to batteries down 30-40% hence net zero on the road.
I can spin a potentiometer on my Dash and watch both an Ammeter, and a voltmeter whose voltage sense leads are on the battery terminals themselves, respond to me spinning that voltage dial.
In general if I have it set for 13.6v, and give it a few minutes of driving, then ask for 14.7v, about 2/3 more amps flow into my battery. This is true whether the battery is at 50% or at 95%.
So I choose 14.7v until I know the batteries are full, then 13.6v.
Rather than beefing up the wiring, some will power an inverter off enginne battery, powering a 25+ amp charger hooked to trailers house batteries.
One can also run thicker copper from alternator and ground through a hefty connector to the trailer batteries, and bypass the 4 or 7 pin cable and get much more voltage at the trailer batts.
Hefty
But when the vehicle chooses 13.6v and says Good enough, the inverter powering a higher amp 'smart' charger will likely deliver more juice to depleted trailer batteries.
There are also DC to DC converters which can step up vehicle voltage, and can speed the charging of distant batteries.
