ppine wrote:
Effeciency is a big issue and voltage drop. You also probably do not want 120 volts in your engine compartment. If your truck is 12v and your trailer or camper are 12v I don't get the point except for a sort of parlor trick.
No parlor trick. Looking for a best fit for our use.
Not sure what you mean by efficiency is a big issue. There would be a small amount of inefficiency converting back and forth 120v and 12v but that inefficiency does not come that expense of battery charging in the camper. It would be wasted alternator potential and diesel fuel. Not sure that would be noticeable at the pump. In general the solar panels provide what we need and would be charging simultaneously with the inverter on the truck This would be used only when we need it through heavy draining of the batteries from running air conditioning or prolonged cloudy days.
As I mentioned above the main reason is to allow me to use the campers inverter/charger with its programmable charging profile specific to Lithium batteries. Otherwise a dc-dc battery charger that is programmable for lithium will be needed. I am looking for something that can pass more than 100 AH dc. At 100Ah I would need 2/0 cable to stay just under 3% line loss. Line loss at 120v would be less that .3%
There are some specialty programable lithium capable dc-dc products out there but the cost is similar to decent inverter and I am having a hard time finding people with specific experience using them. Having an inverter on the truck could also be handy for making 120v power when we don't have the camper with us.
