wbwood wrote:
Dumb question here as I have no experience with generators. I'm seriously considering getting one of these for dry camping and emergency home use. My initial usage would be to charge the batteries. How does one do this with the generator? Do you use a 30-15 amp dogbone and plug the camper directly into it and let the converter charge the batteries? Or is there a different and/or better way of doing it. I'm liking the price....
As noted, there are a multitude of different and acceptable methods of adapting outlets and charging batteries. In my case, my camper battery bank is comprised of two 127 amp hour AGM brutes (102 lbs each!).
I have found the camper's 65 amp Progressive Dynamics converter/charger with the thing they call the
Charge Wizard more than adequate for re-charging the RV batteries from a single 2000i
when other heavy RV loads are removed from the generator and converter. I plug the camper into the generator via an adapter. I re-set the Charge Wizard to Boost mode once I am hooked up and running then let the Wizard microprocessor decide what to provide the batteries from then on.
When I am running a heavy power load in the camper I often manually reduce the converter charger via the Wizard controller again to a slow float charge to cut back on charger load on the 2000i. BTW - the pendant for this device is in the camper, the converter/charger is in the basement. I really like having the remote pendant. The 4 hour generator-allowed daily window at our favorite NPS campground is more than enough to recharge for a night of water pump, TV, lights, refrigerator control, DC fans, short microwave and hair dryer use via the inverter, and enough power left to pull in the slides and operate the landing jacks.
The issue with the 2000i and battery chargers dealt with the power factor of the charger - or the amount of unused, reflected current. Some chargers in RVs had operational power factors in the 50-60% range, while others were in the upper 70's (My PD is 74%). The higher % number power factor chargers will allow the 2000i to work more efficiently (or any inverter genny for that matter).
The old brute force "dumb" chargers that were simply a transformer and rectifier design have the best power factors but they can reduce the life span of batteries if recharged at a rate that gets them too hot or overcharged.
You can purchase an inexpensive Kill-A-Watt meter that directly measures power factor, but it has an internal fuse that limits it to 15 amps so be careful not to try and measure higher camper loads with it connected, like the air conditioner.
Sorry to get so windy with my answer to your question - teachers, even retired ones, have a tendency to over-answer at times. :p
