MrWizard wrote:
You can run multiple chargers as long as they play nice with each other, you won't hurt the batteries or the chargers, but if there are differences in the charging voltage , one might decide the batteries are charged and reduce its output, sensing the higher voltage of the other charger and deciding the batteries are near full, it depends on the electronics of each device, this happens more with external automotive style chargers then converters, the factory built in converters are more like DC power supplies than smart chargers, and should work ok in tandem with the lithium charger, the additional 20 amps seems like a good idea, definitely something i would try
I emailed the converter people and they said their converter would work fine with another charger. I don’t know if they considered what you said here. They just said I wouldn’t damage it. Now that I have the SmartShunt installed it’s very easy to see what the batteries are doing. I need to go out dry camping for a few days and I think I can better tell if I even need any new or additional batteries at all. I do know that if the two I have are fully charged at the end of the evening then they will last all night even if I use the furnace all night with freezing temps outside. I think my problem before was I had no way to tell how charged the batteries were. The SmartShunt will fix that problem.
Right now the SmartShunt is showing the converter supplies between 17 and 22 amps to the batteries. So at that rate I’m looking at 9 hours to fully charge the batteries from the generator from completely dead. If I get an external charger and can get that up to 50 amps, then I’m thinking I can charge them in 4 hours from completely dead. I think the external charger pays for itself in gas alone in the generator for extended boondocking stays. Since I know I’m not using all 200ah in one day, I think I can keep them charged with a couple of hours a day of generator use which was my goal. But I’ll have to wait until I get back out there and see what the SmartShunt tells me.