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McKenziek's avatar
McKenziek
Explorer
Jul 16, 2013

Converter/Charger amps and wire size

The current setup is a WFCO 55amp converter roughly 20 feet away from 2 12V batteries. I'm installing 4 Trojan T105's. I'd like to upgrade the charger to charge the batteries quicker and if so which brand and amps? I had good luck with the Intellipower 9280 years ago. Are they still tops? Lastly, given the amperage of the charger and the distance to the batteries what size wire?

5 Replies

  • You're running 20 feet of wire? I would move the converter close to the batteries and run the 120V line back to the breaker panel or receptacle. 120V isn't as sensitive to voltage drop like 12V is. It's also a lot cheaper wire (120V is). You CAN run the 12V wire 20 ft but you'll never get all 80 amps and likely you'll have to manually trigger the PD to go into boost mode.
  • I use an Iota DLS75 with IQ4 with my 4 6v Trojans and it has worked flawlessly for over a year now and I have not had the problem low water in the batts as other have on here using other converters.
  • I put in an additional deck mounted converter in my pass-through. From there it's only a 3' run to the batteries. AC power was tapped off a bedroom outlet and run to a switched outlet in the pass through.
  • The 9280 is what I would choose. I would pull #3 or #4 wire, depending on type, but #4 is probably more than adequate for only 12 feet from a voltage drop point of view. That charger will rarely operate at 80 amps, more like 20 or 30 most of the time. http://www.armstrongssupply.com/wire_chart.htm

    Brian

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