Deep cycle or starter battery charging issues
I recenty moved from a class B to a small fiver. My old van had one deep cycle battery and I installed an isolator. This set up was good for several nights of light usage before I had to run the van t...
Forum Discussion
You have to set up for what you want to do under the gen time rules for where you want to camp.
Eg, here provincial park gen times are 9-11am and 6-8pm. But the evening hours are in the dark now, so forget that for going outside in the rain in the dark to recharge batteries.
So what can you do in two hours of gen time?
Just got back from a two nighter. Bank is 458AH rated but was estimated 412AH at the temperature of about 40F. First day you get extra AH by starting at 100% SOC instead of later when doing 50-90s.
First day used 160AH with lots of furnace and inverter use pigging out to the max on AH. :) So by 9am next day bank is at est 252 AH remaining or 61% SOC.
So recharge for two hours with the collection of portable chargers which kicks off at 120amps, soon tapering. By 11am gen shut-down Trimetric says we are 40AH down from where it started, so bank is at 372 or 90% SOC of that 412 est full.
(at the end of the recharge time, batt voltage was 14.7, accepting 26amps which is another indicator of being near 90% SOC--5 amps per battery approx)
Now the second day, there is no 40AH cushion from 100-90 so if that 160AH were repeated, bank would be 212 next day, or 51% SOC. No problem, but now in two hours with the recharging ability the same, restoring 120 AH, that gets you back to 332 or 80%. So we are losing instead of staying even, and if going to a third night, we would end up below 50%.
So the second day, less pigging out. Trimetric says by 9am we are again down 160AH but that was from 40 down, so used 120 instead of 160. So by adjusting, we have the daily usage about the same as what we can restore in a two hour rechaarge.
You can find out what you need by going camping and make changes to your set-up as you learn what it is you need to do what you want. ( You also have to learn just what it is that you want while camping!)
IMO you can only figure out so much ahead of time as a newbie, although you can avoid total embarrassment (run out of battery at 3am the first night , eg) by doing at least some homework ahead of time.
Eg, here provincial park gen times are 9-11am and 6-8pm. But the evening hours are in the dark now, so forget that for going outside in the rain in the dark to recharge batteries.
So what can you do in two hours of gen time?
Just got back from a two nighter. Bank is 458AH rated but was estimated 412AH at the temperature of about 40F. First day you get extra AH by starting at 100% SOC instead of later when doing 50-90s.
First day used 160AH with lots of furnace and inverter use pigging out to the max on AH. :) So by 9am next day bank is at est 252 AH remaining or 61% SOC.
So recharge for two hours with the collection of portable chargers which kicks off at 120amps, soon tapering. By 11am gen shut-down Trimetric says we are 40AH down from where it started, so bank is at 372 or 90% SOC of that 412 est full.
(at the end of the recharge time, batt voltage was 14.7, accepting 26amps which is another indicator of being near 90% SOC--5 amps per battery approx)
Now the second day, there is no 40AH cushion from 100-90 so if that 160AH were repeated, bank would be 212 next day, or 51% SOC. No problem, but now in two hours with the recharging ability the same, restoring 120 AH, that gets you back to 332 or 80%. So we are losing instead of staying even, and if going to a third night, we would end up below 50%.
So the second day, less pigging out. Trimetric says by 9am we are again down 160AH but that was from 40 down, so used 120 instead of 160. So by adjusting, we have the daily usage about the same as what we can restore in a two hour rechaarge.
You can find out what you need by going camping and make changes to your set-up as you learn what it is you need to do what you want. ( You also have to learn just what it is that you want while camping!)
IMO you can only figure out so much ahead of time as a newbie, although you can avoid total embarrassment (run out of battery at 3am the first night , eg) by doing at least some homework ahead of time.
