Forum Discussion
NRALIFR
Jun 13, 2019Explorer
Arctic Fox 990 is a truck camper, so it’s hauled, not pulled like a trailer.
If you truly want to “more efficiently charge my camper while driving”, you’d be way better off putting a DC-DC charger in the TC as close to the camper battery as possible, rather than trying to do it with the truck’s alternator and bigger wires alone. I have no experience with dual alternators, but if the alternator is connected to the truck’s starting batteries, they are always going to base their output on the state of charge of those because they are closer to them. If they’re close to fully charged, and the camper batteries are lower, the camper batteries aren’t going to charge very well.
If you want to actually charge up your camper batteries as close to 100% as possible, Read This.
DC-DC chargers will also require heavier charging wires, but not as heavy as you’d need to get better charging using just the alternator alone. My install called for 6 gauge wires, but I had already installed 4 gauge wires and was disappointed with the results using just the alternator.
There are other brands of DC-DC chargers than the one I used (Redarc). CTEK and Renogy just off the top of my head. Renogy just recently came out with some very attractively priced units that I wish had been available when I bought mine. I’d love to see someone on here “Guinea Pig” one of them for us! :W
:):)
If you truly want to “more efficiently charge my camper while driving”, you’d be way better off putting a DC-DC charger in the TC as close to the camper battery as possible, rather than trying to do it with the truck’s alternator and bigger wires alone. I have no experience with dual alternators, but if the alternator is connected to the truck’s starting batteries, they are always going to base their output on the state of charge of those because they are closer to them. If they’re close to fully charged, and the camper batteries are lower, the camper batteries aren’t going to charge very well.
If you want to actually charge up your camper batteries as close to 100% as possible, Read This.
DC-DC chargers will also require heavier charging wires, but not as heavy as you’d need to get better charging using just the alternator alone. My install called for 6 gauge wires, but I had already installed 4 gauge wires and was disappointed with the results using just the alternator.
There are other brands of DC-DC chargers than the one I used (Redarc). CTEK and Renogy just off the top of my head. Renogy just recently came out with some very attractively priced units that I wish had been available when I bought mine. I’d love to see someone on here “Guinea Pig” one of them for us! :W
:):)
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