Battery Charging
2008 Lance Camper 845 - bought new in 2009 ... If I'm driving down the road, does the truck alternator charge my house battery just as it does my truck starting battery. OR, it there a separate b...
Forum Discussion
probably would have got a faster answer int he truck camper forum, but yes you need to do somthing different. I don't use any charging from the truck with my camper and 5th wheel as I have solar to do that, but even if I didn't I wouldnt anyways unless it was through a dc to dc charger. the factory lines that are run to the 7pin are just to small to keep up the voltage over that distance. I used to have 6V GC batteries in the camper now I have a 300AH LiFePo4 and I just bought a dc to dc charger to use in emergencys as I don't like generators if I can help it haha.
what made you decide on AGM batteries? (just curious not pushing one or another, its just they are by far the most expensive option for the lowest increase in benifits)
AGM, GC2, LFP heck any battery that isn't a car starting battery need different charging profiles that your altanator and truck charging system cannot meet exactly.. so in all cases it won't charge properly, in few it may harm it from overcharging or charging to a wrong voltage ect.. a dc to dc charge lets you limit the charge the truck can put out so you don't dammage anything and also customize the charge profile for your house batteries.
I thought AGM will last longer and can safely go below 50% discharge. I'm weak on electrical knowledge so like to get info from RV folks, and not always listen to advertising that's trying to sell me a product.. We do boondock some still, but less than in past years. We do not carry a generator and never have in over twenty years with Truck Campers. We've usually bought an Interstate battery and just used up the last one and now need another - so have been exploring the options a bit. So it doesn't make much difference if we buy AGM or a standard battery. I do like the idea of a sealed battery because it's a little difficult to watch the water in the Lance battery case. We most often recharge in a W/E campground during our trips and boondock for shorter periods than in the past as well. Do you have a recommendation for the best battery choice in this case?? Cost is less a concern than quality.
I tend to sway towares LFP(lithium iron phosphate) , but I mostly boon dock, if you are not having capacity issue for how you use it now then the only advantage of a LFP would weight and space savings and sence you plug in a fair bit you would need to change your converter to a Li compatable one if it isn't already. Like I said I went from two 6V GC2 batteries rated at 208AH each but as with flooded batteries you have to stay under that 50% so I had 104AH I could use and they took up my entire outside storage and weights 158ish lbs.. now I have a 304AH LFP battery that is the size of a normal car battery and livens in the closet (freed up my outer storage) and only weighs 48lbs and I can use 100%. if you going on cost, then you have to look at the cycle life of a battery and how much power it can deliver on each cycle. so a LFP battery is usaly rated for 3000-4000 cycles at 100% discharge, so like I say if we take the average of 3500, and you fully cycle a battery twice every weekend that would last for 33 years before you need a new battery as long as you don't abuse it. as far as abusing its actualy hard to do except for charging whent he internal battery temp is below 0C . which is why I put mine in the closet as it gets heat from the furnace and I do a lot of early spring/lait fall camping where the temp is down at -5 to -10C. now you can discharge them to -20C and newer ones to -30C but just cant charge them.
I am not sure how many AH you have now, but 100AH LFP batteries can be had cheeper than AGM well for me up here, and even cheeper than good quality 6V batteries. but, if your converter isn't Li capable you have to factor that in. but if you are runing two say 80AH batteries right now and you switch to two 100Ah LFP batteries you have increased the AH available to you by around 2.5x and cut your battery eright in half aproximatly.
