BFL13 wrote:
The 50-80 is to save gen time by charging in the SOC zone where the battery acceptance rate is highest. You only operate in the 80-99 zone when on solar and your amps are low (solar amps are low!) but you have all day, so it comes out fairly even in AH (unless it gets cloudy). Also that is daily and you might do a 50-80 every two or three days.
But that 50-80 leaves you badly undercharged so sulfation sets in immediately, so you can't do that very long and then you absolutely need shore power (takes a couple days so gen no good) to do a full "recovery" which includes an equalization to get the SG back to baseline.
My tactics are based on provincial park generator limit from 9-11am (ignoring the 6-8pm) so I want to get my 50-90 done in two hours. You can "arrange" that by choosing enough battery bank, charging amps, and enough gen to run those chargers at those amps.
IMO you now have all the info you need from this thread to figure out
your best tactics for your own situation. It is just going to take some time for it to sink in (give it a few months? it took me years to figure mine out) Everyone has his own scenario so you have to cherry pick from what others do that apply to you.
Yes you can run that 75 and 40 together. Not sure about the Honda 2000 but your advantage is that the 75er is PF corrected, which is a huge advantage for keeping the gen requirement down. My Honda 3000 will run 130amps of VECs at once but 135 amps makes it conk out. But with the PF corrected 100, I can also run 50amps of VECs for a total of 150 amps charging instead of 130. If I had more PF corrected chargers instead of the VECs I could do even more on the 3000.
Sounds like you could have just got the 40a VEC and never need the 75amper if you only operate in the high SOC zone, but now you have the 75amper, might as well find a role for it. Someday you might change your "camping" style and be real glad you have that 75amper.
wow, i didn't know PF correction was that effective! good to know, thanxx!
yes, i figured you were on the park's schedule, and obviously you've found what works for you and others in a similar situation. mine is perhaps a little more complicated in that i work all day, but then again, solar may very well work well with such a schedule... as you said, lots to think about. the other nice thing about solar is it is a slower, more gentle charge, which many claim is better for deep cycle batteries anyway. it would be nice to use the gennie as more of a back up and top-up system, rather than my primary power source.
and yes, i figured the 50-80 might have to do with taking advantage of boost mode charging. but as you said, it would require me to connect to shore power quite often, so i think i'm stuck with trying to keep the batteries in the 80-100 range, whatever that takes! solar by day, gennie by night? lol
my past experiences with chargers steered me to the pm4b, but it appears i was originally on the right track with the xpower40, as it seems to be similar in features to the vec. if it had only lasted, i wouldn't even be in this situation. oh well, live and learn.
thanks again for your help and patience.
