solar charging question

[Swampman597]

Currently have 4-6v batteries in RV and another pair of 6v's in the pole barn attached to the charge controller and panels. The batteries on the RV are normally charged by the Trimetic controller and I want to know if I can add them to the output of the solar charge controller and turn off the Trimetic charger?

The current solar charge setup spends alot of time in float mode so it shouldn't hurt the 2 primary batteries which are used for lights and a couple of small loads. If this is doable, will it be as easy as putting a splitter on the wires to the batteries and just hook them up?

Thank you,

Mike

[pianotuna]

Hi,

If the nominal voltage is 12 on the solar system, then I'd look carefully at the Grape 40 amp charge controller from Home Depot.

[time2roll]

Some Parallax are better than others.

http://www.parallaxpower.com/converters

[Swampman597]

My apologies, its a Parallax Power converter in the RV, not a Trimetic. The ones you referenced look nice and have me wondering if a better charge controller might be the best way to go.

Thanks

[time2roll]

deleted

[time2roll]

Sorry I assumed if you have a "trimetic controller" that would be the Bogart Engineering solar controller SC-2030 that connects to the Trimetic TM-2030 monitor. In this case the monitor tells the controller in real time when the battery is full and drops to float voltage.

http://www.bogartengineering.com/products/

Otherwise yes for float service just jumper the batteries in parallel.

[Swampman597]

Sorry for the delay getting back because I really appreciate your answers. Our worst drought in 103 years is finally over and the DSL systems need to deal with water and lightning again.

Are all the batteries the same capacity? Yes, they are all Costco GC batteries, just a few years difference in age.
Do you have two solar systems? No, just the Renogy panels with the Wanderer charge controller.

Why do you want to turn off the Bogart controller? [COLOR=]Not sure what a Bogart controller is. I placed a toggle switch in my converter which lets me turn off the battery charger when dry camping. Plus the charger in the inverter is better than the Trimetics one.Combined with the monitor this is a very good set up.

What controller is on the barn batteries? Wanderer

It sounds like you have the RV inside the pole barn and have a separate solar system for the barn. Correct

If so, yes you should be able to connect to the RV bank and keep those batteries charged. If the batteries are significantly older - then you may have some issues with the batteries pulling charge from the other bank. Good, thats what I was thinking. Down the road, I'd like to investigate a docking-like setup that charges and uses the RV batteries in the pole barn grid when home.

But if all the batteries are in pretty good shape and you don't have any large loads it should keep them all charged up. Thats what I'm hoping

Thanks everyone, this was very helpful.

[Fubeca]

It sounds like you have the RV inside the pole barn and have a separate solar system for the barn.

If so, yes you should be able to connect to the RV bank and keep those batteries charged. If the batteries are significantly older - then you may have some issues with the batteries pulling charge from the other bank.

But if all the batteries are in pretty good shape and you don't have any large loads it should keep them all charged up.

[time2roll]

Why do you want to turn off the Bogart controller? Combined with the monitor this is a very good set up.

What controller is on the barn batteries?

[pianotuna]

Hi Mike,

Are all the batteries the same capacity?

Do you have two solar systems?