Do I have to disconnect my battery. (1 Viewer)

[williat1]

Hi all

I'll be camping off mains electricity for a week or so and will be relying on being economical with my power usage. A friend who will be camping on the adjacent pitch is taking a generator with him which has two mains 240v outputs. He's offered me the use of one of these outputs to charge my leisure battery,

My question is.... if I connect my halfords "intelligent" battery charger to the generator to charge my leisure battery in situ. do I have to disconnect the battery terminals to prevent damage to the onboard battery charger and electronics of my motorhome?

I know I can't run sensitive 12v electrical components whilst charging, due to the higher voltage produced by the battery charger.

Q2. What size solar panel will give any meaningful output in the UK weather conditions and how much would it cost?



regards

williat1

 

[JayDee]

I'm not very savvy when it comes to generators, but...

We bought a second hand generator just recently and all we need to do is to plug the output from the generator into the hook-up point and Robert is your parental sibling. No battery charger required - to misquote Phil Collins - other than the onboard one.

If I'm wrong (???) I imagine you'll soon get told the right answer.


John

 

[Peter JohnsCross MH]

No need to disconnect anything, just plug the genny out put lead into your hook up socket same as you would on a normal hookup.

This is providing the genny is not a cheapo chinese one, they are the ones that 'spike'

Peter

^{_{Subscribers  do not see these advertisements}}

 

[pappajohn]

no you wont need to disconnect the battery.
just connect the intelligent charger to the battery as normal.

its no different than having a solar panel connected at the same time as being on hookup.

re: solar panel.....
size of panel will depend on your usage but i have a 120w panel on the roof and 3 X 110ah batteries and it does just fine.
cost was £400 a year ago.
we dont really skimp on leccy usage.

 

[williat1]

Do I need to disconnet battery

Thanks for your replies,

The reason I was asking was that the generator is a cheapie one and I was concerned about spikes damaging any sensitive motorhome components.

The reason for using the remote charger, was that I have read somewhere, that the on board chargers never fully charge the leisure batteries as they are restricted to a peak voltage which won't damage 12 volt equipment, whereas the intelligent chargers will fully charge a battery to 100 % capacity 14.5V..... is this correct?


Regards

williat1

 

[scotjimland]

I have read somewhere, that the on board chargers never fully charge the leisure batteries as they are restricted to a peak voltage which won't damage 12 volt equipment, whereas the intelligent chargers will fully charge a battery to 100 % capacity 14.5V..... is this correct?

Correct .. but the real reason is cost, many are little more than 12v power supply units and won't charge fully .. intelligent 3 or 4 stage chargers are generally fitted to the more expensive vans..

On my RV the original charger was quite frankly crap .. so I changed it for a Phoenix Multi plus 70A - 4 stage charger, coupled to a 2kw Honda genny it charged up 4 x 85ah batteries in a few hours..

^{_{Subscribers  do not see these advertisements}}