Generator vs Battery/Inverter/Solar
We have just purchased our first truck camper - a used 2007 Lance 845 and have a couple questions that I hope you can help us out with. The camper is still at the dealer and we're considering having a...
Forum Discussion
ticki2 wrote:
I choose to feed the solenoid from a lighted switch on the dash so I could manually control the charging times and the connection between the TC batteries and truck batteries . I didn't like the idea of continually pumping 14+v into a fully charged deep cycle battery which is what happens when the solenoid feed is connected to an ignition-on feed. Comments ?
Two comments:
-- Manual switches get forgotten. Ignition controlled switches prevent a charge from solar/shore power ever reaching the starter batteries. (Can be important if your camper ever sits for very long.) An intelligent relay, such as those made by Blue Sea, solves all of these problems very elegantly. Like others, I like Blue Sea products.
-- You won't be pumping current into a fully charged battery. Your vehicle's voltage regulator will throttle back as the internal resistance of the battery rises.
Basically, you want the batteries combined when under charge and separated when discharging.
