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qwerty11's avatar
qwerty11
Explorer
May 29, 2013

No converter just battery charger?

For reference, I'm building a small camper from scratch...

So I keep running the numbers and my four LED lights are barely going to put a dent in a battery. I am having difficulty rationalizing spending $150 on the progressive dynamics converter/charger for my application. However I would like to have the ability to recharge the battery off the generator if necessary. My thoughts are why can't I get a decent battery charger? Something like the Schumacher SC-1200A. Looks like I could just leave this guy plugged into the generator and anytime the gen is running charge the battery. Looks like it would put out enough "converted" power to run my lights even if the battery was dead.

Thoughts?

14 Replies

  • I have the schumacher sc2500a which is no longer made.
    2/12/25 amps
    I use it as a converter on the 12 amp setting.

    The cycling compressor fridge or the cycling mattress heating pad easily throws the charger into fault mode on 2 or 25 amp settings.

    Even turning off smaller non cycling loads like my .9 amp tv can cause it to shut off on 2 or 25 amp settings.

    Rarely, the 12 amp setting also decides it does not like changing loads on the batteries.

    The fan is annoyingly loud.

    I'll probably get a PD9260 before next winter. Generally this time of year I never need anything but my solar to replenish the batteries
  • 12a charger? May as well use the 12v 8a direct that many generators have.
  • You could get a small DC-DC converter and save the charger for charging.

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