bigfootford wrote:
I would not want to run my truck to charge the house batteries when Boondocking or camping if I do not have to... I run my little Honda 2000I...
As for the truck charging the camper house batteries most of our Alternators settle on a voltage output of 13.8 to 14.2... My solar will do 14.6-14.9 depending on the temperature of my camper battery..
To prove that I have seen my truck battery start to take a charge from the solar because the Solar voltage is higher than the camper... I know one can modify the truck charge system to over come that but I elect not to put diodes etc in the truck circuit to accomplish this. Diodes drop the voltage by .7 vdc...
Jim
I'm allergic to the sound of generators. I will hardly ever run my truck just to charge the batteries, but having it dump 50 amps into them when I run to the store or tour around does some good. The solar does a great job, but does it relatively slowly unless you have a large array. Slowly but relentlessly. If the batteries are down to 50 precent state of charge, the alternator will put 50 or more amps into them, even at 13.8 volts, while my solar will only put about 10 into them. When they aren't taking much from the 13.8V source, they are probably at 80 precent plus SOC. On a Ford you don't need any diodes, the charge source will be disconnected when the key is off. If you run a separate high amperage circuit, use the modern method of a voltage sensitive relay, no voltage drop.
