Recharging house batteries
When leaving a campground with partially drawn down house batteries, the engines alternator will slowly recharge them. Can I charge those batteries faster by starting the in house generator at the...
Forum Discussion
theoldwizard1 wrote:pianotuna wrote:
However, a DC to DC boost device added between the alternator and the house batteries may be just as fast.
Concur ! Modern vehicle charging systems reduce the alternator voltage to about 13.2V shortly after the engine starts. This will never fully recharge a house battery bank. You need a DC-DC charger.pianotuna wrote:
I added a 2nd charging path using #8 wire--and I have manual control of the charging solenoids.
Re-read the above.
Yes larger gauge wires helps, but you will never be able to get a house battery bank back to 100% SOC on 13.2V !
When I put in the 2nd charging path I had identical batteries for house and starter (marine cycle). I did see over 70 amps of charging.
Also, at that time, getting a dc to DC charging device was pretty much unheard of.
Now that I have AGM telco house bank and an AGM starter, my solar sends energy to the engine--so I get almost no alternator charging.
