running two chargers
Here is a technical question. Let's say you want to charge your house batteries on your RV quicker. If you have two 12 volt batteries in your battery bank would you charge that battery bank quicker ...
Forum Discussion
MrWizard wrote:
parallel 12v ?
yes..IF the batteries are low enough SOC
if they are taking everything charger #1 can produce, charger #2 might increase total amps into the batteries
this will increase the amps, but only until the amps drop below what the charger with highest voltage can produce, at that time the lesser charger is doing nothing
To clarify, the second charger is not then necessary, but both chargers could still be doing something. If one's voltage is not far below the other's and both are above the battery voltage, you can have say:
Battery acceptance 40 amps
Charger 1 (60 amper and a tad higher in voltage) and Charger 2 (20 amper) where you are seeing eg, 35 amps plus 5 amps for total of 40.
Charger 2 is still doing some of the amps and Charger 1 is not doing all it could. Yank Charger 2, and now Charger 1's amps jump from 35 to 40.
The amps each does is proportionate to the "spread" between their voltages and the battery voltage. It is not all or none. The lower voltage one will have its amps start to taper first but then you can have both with tapering amps. Two equal 40 ampers would be showing 20 and 20. Pull one and the other jumps from 20 to 40.
One thing to note, if you have a power interruption (gen pops a breaker eg) then to restart the whole thing, you must get the lower voltage charger running again before you start the other or you might not be able to get the lower one going. It can just indicate "full" if the higher voltage one is going.
