Dry camping battery charging options
We have a Salem Cruise Lite with the standard factory installed 12v battery. We are dry camping for the next week in Yellowstone and I have been periodically re-charging out battery simply by connect...
Forum Discussion
I have camped alot off the power grid in the past five years and at fist also tried just re-charging the batteries a hour or so each day. It seemed to be working for us as well but after a couple of days of doing this my batteries begin to start falling off on how long they would keep working at the same levels.. They would start going below approximately 50% charge state earlier than the day before.
I guess if I was going to do this just for a couple of days it would probably work for me just fine. I suspect doing this over a longer time frame I would do some harm to my batteries...
After increasing my battery capacity to around 255Ahs to handle all the 120VAC and 12VDC loads we wanted to use and recharging everyday with my trailer shore power cable directly connected to my 2KW generator using a RV30A-15A long adapter we was able to bring back the battery bank to its 90% charge state in as little as three hours of generator run time. This is using smart mode charging technology with my on-board smart mode PD9260C converter/charger.
We can stay out a good two weeks time using this mode of re-charging and not see any harm done to my batteries at all... We try to get our batteries re-charged back up to their 90% charge starting at 8AM each morning.
By re-charging my previous single 12VDC battery every day by connecting to my truck start battery using a jumper cable and running the truck for an hour or so did not do well for us over a few days time.
Thinking back I suspect if I had run my truck motor for around three hours I may have indeed brought my single 12VDC battery back up to its 90% charge state.
The battery science for today's deep cycle battery is telling me that I need to hit my batteries that are just at 50% charged state with 14.4VDC with the capacity of around 20AMPS per battery to be able to re-charge this battery backup to their 90% charge state in a three hour time frame. It appears to me if they are not brought back to their the 90% charge state state then their performance will start falling off and after a few days of this I also suspect I will most likely start doing internal damage to my batteries.
These are just my thoughts as I am not a battery charging expert - only a frequent user of deep cycle batteries when camping off the power grid.
I do not disagree with those that say they do the one hour or so of recharging and do just fine. I suspect if they continue doing this over time without getting the charge state up to at least 90% charge state it will follow more of what I have experienced. Additionally to coming back to the 90% charge state right away everyday I also have experienced the batteries start falling off in performance after doing coupe of weeks of this 50% to 90% charge state cycles. I have to do full 100% recharge of these batteries to get my performance back. Doing a 100% charge state when camping off the power grid requires me to run my 2KW generator about 12 hours of run time which usually gets me in trouble with the generator run restrictions at the camp grounds we use here on the East side of the US.
I watch my battery DC voltages real close when camping off the power grid and use these DC voltage reading to keep me in the ball park when the battery is charged to either a 50% or a 90% charge state. It may not be 100% battery science but works for me just fine camping off the power grid over a two week camping period.
All of this is based on my experiences only...
Just passing along how we camp off off the power grid for extended times and recharging our batteries each day.
Roy ken
I guess if I was going to do this just for a couple of days it would probably work for me just fine. I suspect doing this over a longer time frame I would do some harm to my batteries...
After increasing my battery capacity to around 255Ahs to handle all the 120VAC and 12VDC loads we wanted to use and recharging everyday with my trailer shore power cable directly connected to my 2KW generator using a RV30A-15A long adapter we was able to bring back the battery bank to its 90% charge state in as little as three hours of generator run time. This is using smart mode charging technology with my on-board smart mode PD9260C converter/charger.
We can stay out a good two weeks time using this mode of re-charging and not see any harm done to my batteries at all... We try to get our batteries re-charged back up to their 90% charge starting at 8AM each morning.
By re-charging my previous single 12VDC battery every day by connecting to my truck start battery using a jumper cable and running the truck for an hour or so did not do well for us over a few days time.
Thinking back I suspect if I had run my truck motor for around three hours I may have indeed brought my single 12VDC battery back up to its 90% charge state.
The battery science for today's deep cycle battery is telling me that I need to hit my batteries that are just at 50% charged state with 14.4VDC with the capacity of around 20AMPS per battery to be able to re-charge this battery backup to their 90% charge state in a three hour time frame. It appears to me if they are not brought back to their the 90% charge state state then their performance will start falling off and after a few days of this I also suspect I will most likely start doing internal damage to my batteries.
These are just my thoughts as I am not a battery charging expert - only a frequent user of deep cycle batteries when camping off the power grid.
I do not disagree with those that say they do the one hour or so of recharging and do just fine. I suspect if they continue doing this over time without getting the charge state up to at least 90% charge state it will follow more of what I have experienced. Additionally to coming back to the 90% charge state right away everyday I also have experienced the batteries start falling off in performance after doing coupe of weeks of this 50% to 90% charge state cycles. I have to do full 100% recharge of these batteries to get my performance back. Doing a 100% charge state when camping off the power grid requires me to run my 2KW generator about 12 hours of run time which usually gets me in trouble with the generator run restrictions at the camp grounds we use here on the East side of the US.
I watch my battery DC voltages real close when camping off the power grid and use these DC voltage reading to keep me in the ball park when the battery is charged to either a 50% or a 90% charge state. It may not be 100% battery science but works for me just fine camping off the power grid over a two week camping period.
All of this is based on my experiences only...
Just passing along how we camp off off the power grid for extended times and recharging our batteries each day.
Roy ken
