BFL13 wrote:
Using the converter to support the battery bank while it is being pulled down by the inverter is a good technique. Another way is to use alternator charging to support the battery bank.
I’m not having good luck with alternator charging the TC battery with this truck. I was able to get acceptable alternator charging from the two older trucks that carried this camper by simply increasing the size of the charge wires going to the camper. The alternator could then keep up with the draw from an inverter that was being used to run the fridge in AC mode that was cycling on maybe 40% of the time.
On my current truck, the 12v system is very different, and I believe the charging is being controlled by the computer. To be honest I don’t have a good understanding of it, so I’m hesitant to connect the camper charge wires directly to the alternator like I did on my old trucks, so they are connected to the truck batteries. I’m not getting acceptable charging this way, so I’m currently considering adding a Redarc
BCDC1240D battery-to-battery charger in the camper. I already have 4 AWG charge wires run to the camper from the truck. It looks like those would be plenty to run the 40 amp battery-to-battery charger. This particular model also has a built in MPPT solar controler, in case I wanted to add a panel later.
:):)
