Newbie to Generators - Best method to charge RV Battery

For an update I took many people advice and went with the 2000 Watt Honda genny. It is a little larger and heavier to pack around and probably a little louder but I believe it was a good choice. Not to mention the few hundred dollars additional cost! :)

Appreciate everyone's feedback.

Regards,
Bob

The little 1000watt clean power gennies produce 12 volt power then invert it to 120 volt. It would be great if we could use the 12 volt to charge batteries but it's uncontrolled. It can "cook" your batteries. I don't know if anyone puts a charger circuit in a little genny. So you have to run your power through a charger. Some trailer converter/chargers are better than others, and may have low output as a charger. So a new smart adjustable charger would work better. Or with a 1000watt nominal,you may have to adjust your load down, so you may need an adjustable anyway if your charger is a HD.

These are just what I learned and experienced.

Hi bobsrvnet,

What is the power factor on the converter? The 7.5 amps gives 900 watts @ 120 volts--but that is not intended as a continuous draw. It might, or might not, power a 45 amp converter if the battery bank is "hungry".

The DC output on the Honda is unregulated. I.e. it may be up to 16 volts. That is enough to damage the control boards in your RV. You can still use it--but only with the battery disconnect set to off.

Thanks for the feedback thus far. The converter on my RV is a 45amp at 12vdc, 7.5 amps at 120VAC input. Also mentions charge rate 5 amps on the label. The Honda EU1000iKC2 says in the specs max rated 7.5 amps at 120VAC and DC output amps at 6.5amps at 12vdc. This seems like enough for my purposes of general battery charging and emergency situations when no AC available to power lights, and water pump use and maybe the furnace on occasion.

I really wanted to make the smallest, lightest, quietest Genny work for my planned use. And of course the cost aspect! :)

Now I'm not saying run out and do this ..... But it sure is nice

I have 1 Honda EU2000 and 1 Honda EU 2000 companion and the cross over cable "love it"

Very manageable weight and super quiet.

I also supplement with 2 Goal Zero bolder 30's (solar panels)and the new inverter to charge 12 V's.

Together was not cheap but has sure been nice!!!

I would urge you to get a 2000 watt gen instead. You'll find you run out of generator easily and even some battery chargers will overload it and trip its breaker with a little 1K.

lanerd wrote:
I think you would do a better (faster) charge if you brought along a regular battery charger (up to 50 amps) and plugged that into the Honda (might need a 2000w Honda) and then used the charger cables to your trailer battery.

Just a thought.

Ron

Depends on the charger in OP's unit. My 26' came with a 55A charger/converter so plugging in a 50A external charger wouldn't be a benefit for some.

Also keep in mind if you're so inclined you can also connect jumper cables from your TV to your TT batteries and charge that way as well. One plus is you avoid the inefficiencies of converting from AC to DC power and the alternator on your TV is likely to produce more output than the charger in your TT. Getting max output would require reving up the engine. In my diesel Superduty I use the high idle to get the best alternator output.

We do just fine running around 255AHs capacity battery bank. This is enough power to run our home entertainment items from an 120VAC source coming from an PSW INVERTER along with alot of other 12VDC items direct connected to the battery bank. We do just about everything we do at an electric camp ground except no air conditioner or high wattage microwave use.

We have beefed up our battery system to include additional batteries and smart mode charging technology. We have also replaced all of our incandescent automotive type bulbs for LED lights.

The idea here is to run all of the 120VAC items we want to run from an PSW Inverter and all of the 12VDC items direct connected to the batteries and then recharge the next batteries the next morning around 8AM with the 30AMP Trailer shore power cable connected directly to our 2KW Honda Generator 120VAC receptacle using an RV30A-15A long adapter.

We can re-charge our batteries back up to their 90% charge state in as little as three hours generator run time.

Now we are good to go for the next day/night battery run...

Does take some planning but works very successful for us now...

Roy Ken

I think you would do a better (faster) charge if you brought along a regular battery charger (up to 50 amps) and plugged that into the Honda (might need a 2000w Honda) and then used the charger cables to your trailer battery.

Just a thought.

Ron

Hi,

Yes just plug it in. However a 1000 watt genny may only reliably power a 40 amp converter. If the converter is larger then a larger wattage genny may be a better idea.

You will not be able to run the air conditioner with a 1000 watt genny.