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
If your charger will stay at 14.8 until battery voltage reaches that, then you can do no more. Mex is talking about when the charger has a timer that drops its voltage too soon before battery voltage rises enough and the SG catches up too, even when accounting for "SG Lag" before dropping to Float.
If your solar array is not enough in wattage to supply enough amps during daylight (so not enough AHs), you will not get to a full charge if you used more AH than that previously.
Every day is different due to cloudiness, etc, so you can't pick a number that will work every time for how many AH to use and how many watts of solar you need for replacing the same number of AH every day so you get to a full charge every day.
You go camping with what you have and adjust as you go along as required to get by, including running the gen powered charger when solar can't keep up. Max flex.
OP has enough to go camping and find out how that goes without losing all 12v at 3 am. After each trip, lessons learned, adjust set-up. Ten years later it might be getting close to being right :) ( But then you get a new rig and start over)
If your solar array is not enough in wattage to supply enough amps during daylight (so not enough AHs), you will not get to a full charge if you used more AH than that previously.
Every day is different due to cloudiness, etc, so you can't pick a number that will work every time for how many AH to use and how many watts of solar you need for replacing the same number of AH every day so you get to a full charge every day.
You go camping with what you have and adjust as you go along as required to get by, including running the gen powered charger when solar can't keep up. Max flex.
OP has enough to go camping and find out how that goes without losing all 12v at 3 am. After each trip, lessons learned, adjust set-up. Ten years later it might be getting close to being right :) ( But then you get a new rig and start over)
