Need help fast please

We had the same thing happen to us with 2 weeks left in our vacation. I used a standard battery charger with a 2 amp and 10 amp setting that I had on hand. Overnight I ran it at 10 amps and during the day I had it set to 2 amps. It kept the battery charged the rest of the trip.

-Michael

Get at least 10 amp rating. The 1 or 2 amp maintainers are not going to cut it.

RoyB wrote:
Be sure to keep a close eye on your batteries and not let them get over charged and boil out the fluids... leaving 13.6 VDC and higher DC Voltages on your batteries for long periods of time can do this...

He said maybe 5 days. Not a "long time" in this context.

BUT....most smart chargers are very low capacity and might just barely keep up with the 12 V load without really charging the batteries much.

Since it is not good to leave the batteries in a low state of charge for a "long time", he should not leave this temporary fix in place very long.

Quote:
Be sure to keep a close eye on your batteries and not let them get over charged and boil out the fluids... leaving 13.6 VDC and higher DC Voltages on your batteries for long periods of time can do this...
-------------------------------------------------------------
Really ?? All this time I was thinking that was the reason for a smart charger.

Some Smart chargers will work much like the converter. Some will charge but you need to manually reset them to get it to re-charge.

Not all that hard to find a Progressive Dynamics 9200 series converter (Try to match the last two digits (the 00 in the series line) to your existing converter and hook it in parallel. or replace your existing if it is a "Stand alone" device

Or if the converter is part of the power panel.. a 4600 may well replace it.

Quick job in most cases.

Be sure to keep a close eye on your batteries and not let them get over charged and boil out the fluids... leaving 13.6 VDC and higher DC Voltages on your batteries for long periods of time can do this...

The smart mode chargers will drop this back to 13.2VDC when the demand is low which keeps the boiling out of battery fluids to a minimum. When the battery fluids gets below the cell cores the risk of shorting out the cells is hugh. Shorted out cells means game over for a battery...

The same close watching of the batteries also goes in the other direction... Allowing your batteries to get discharged below their 50% charge state is like driving a nail in their coffin performance wise... I monitor my battery Voltages like a hawk when in a situation like this and not ever let them get below the 12.0VDC mark which is approximately the 50% charge state.

Having our good smart mode converter/charger on-line really takes care of my batteries for me almost automatically... I still watch them very close out of habit when camping out for extended times like you are doing and its a great feeling finding things are taking care of themself. It is a maintenance routine that pays off big time not having early replacement of my batteries...

Roy Ken

Thank you! I ran out to an all night Walmart and bought a smart charger. I hooked it up and fridge and A/C are working again! Now maybe I can get some sleep.... Hey, why are you guys awake? :Z

Most battery chargers should work fine.

Yes- a "smart" charger so it won't over charge, but no problem.