Critique proposed solar battery upgrade
Currently have a Jayco hybrid (Jayfeather 26L) but moving to a Denali 5th wheel in the spring (2012 DE324LBS). Currently have 4 Trojan T125’s with 600 watts of solar, with a Kisae 2000 watt pure sine...
Forum Discussion
I don't have the scenario for how often you would want fast charging off the gen and what the gen hours might be in the campground. Or how much gas you would need for the gen while it runs forever, and how far to get some more. Everything is about the scenario. EG with the Honda 3000 in the truck bed I just fill the gen when it needs some (not often) when I am filling the truck (often)
All I can say is that it will take "forever" to recharge any decent size bank with a typical RV converter. Also no converter seems to be adjustable voltage except the charger in an inverter/charger or else these PowerMax adjustables. There are some Meanwell or Megawatt adjustables but they are at lower amps--good for a smaller bank or lots of gen time on a bigger bank.
The battery specs these days seem to be anything other than what RV converters do, so you really need an adjustable voltage one. But then Mex says ignore most of that, because the battery specs are dubious anyway. Beats me! You can go to about 27% charging rate on an AGM like mine, so four of those 100Ah jobs would accept 108 Amps set to say 14.8 v.
How to do that with your 14.4v 55 amper? So out comes the PowerMax 100amp ADJ raring to go :) But now you need more than a 2000w gen to run it. So sad too bad. "They" don't make it easy for an RVer to assemble a proper set-up. :(
I also like having the portable extra charger in case the converter dies while on a trip. You can still operate by using the "spare" charger.
On the solar side, you have many choices and I can't say what would be best. EG, I don't know the roof space options on the trailer.
I have no problem with two solar controllers in parallel on the same battery bank. BTDT. One set up I ran for a while had my big inverter just on the two T-1275s and they had their own solar set, while the rest of the RV ran on its own set of batteries and they had their own solar. You can do just about anything and it all works.
I am just unclear what's so wrong with what you have now that you need to change anything for the new trailer. So you are the expert on that. :)
All I can say is that it will take "forever" to recharge any decent size bank with a typical RV converter. Also no converter seems to be adjustable voltage except the charger in an inverter/charger or else these PowerMax adjustables. There are some Meanwell or Megawatt adjustables but they are at lower amps--good for a smaller bank or lots of gen time on a bigger bank.
The battery specs these days seem to be anything other than what RV converters do, so you really need an adjustable voltage one. But then Mex says ignore most of that, because the battery specs are dubious anyway. Beats me! You can go to about 27% charging rate on an AGM like mine, so four of those 100Ah jobs would accept 108 Amps set to say 14.8 v.
How to do that with your 14.4v 55 amper? So out comes the PowerMax 100amp ADJ raring to go :) But now you need more than a 2000w gen to run it. So sad too bad. "They" don't make it easy for an RVer to assemble a proper set-up. :(
I also like having the portable extra charger in case the converter dies while on a trip. You can still operate by using the "spare" charger.
On the solar side, you have many choices and I can't say what would be best. EG, I don't know the roof space options on the trailer.
I have no problem with two solar controllers in parallel on the same battery bank. BTDT. One set up I ran for a while had my big inverter just on the two T-1275s and they had their own solar set, while the rest of the RV ran on its own set of batteries and they had their own solar. You can do just about anything and it all works.
I am just unclear what's so wrong with what you have now that you need to change anything for the new trailer. So you are the expert on that. :)
