Why do I need a DC to DC charger?
I came to this group because of the tendency for truck campers to be more off grid oriented with knowledge about coach batteries. Unless your using Lithium, why would you need a DC to DC charger be...
Forum Discussion
Freep wrote:
Are they LiFePo4 batteries? That's the key here. You don't need a DC-DC charger for FLA or AGM but you definitely need it for LiFePo4 if you want to be able to charge the batteries from your truck.
I have to respectfully disagree with you here. I have a single group 31 AGM, and a DC-DC charger, and If I were asked whether to install solar or a DC-DC charger, I would recommend the DC-DC charger. With one caveat though: install one that has a solar input as well. DC-DC chargers are nothing more than an MPPT voltage controller. Install the right one, and it will do double-duty for you, and it will always prefer the solar panels over the truck alternator if the sun is shining. Up to the limit of what the panels can produce, anyway.
When I’m on the road, I’m running the fridge in either DC mode, or in AC mode from an inverter. Before I installed the DC-DC charger and was just relying on the truck alternator to charge the camper battery, I’d typically find the camper battery to be at 75-85% charged at the end of the day. And that was after installing 6 AWG charge wires from the truck to the camper battery. The fridge was working fine, but pulling in to a primitive camp without a fully charged camper battery doesn’t work for me.
With the DC-DC charger, I can run the fridge on the coldest setting while driving if needed, and there’s still enough charging capacity left to keep the camper battery as close to fully charged as possible.
Another unexpected benefit of the DC-DC charger is that the fridge DC mode works noticeably better than before. The voltage to the 12v heating element is being maintained at 2-3 volts higher than before, and it actually gets hotter, and can maintain a lower temperature inside the fridge, even in extremely hot ambient temps. It could never do that before. It worked so poorly I pulled the fuse on the fridge controller board for the 12v heater so I wouldn’t accidentally switch it to DC mode.
They’re getting more and more reasonably priced too. There just isn’t a down side as far as I’m concerned.
:):)
