Now that I've got four brand new T145 house batteries and two new 8D chassis batteries, I thought it was a good idea to make sure my charging system was up to snuff. The house batteries have a total of about 520 Ah.
Original charger (still working) is a Pro Marine Newpro 20/35. Apparently this is an old-school charger that will eventually boil my batteries. The only thing I like about it is that it can charge both the house and chassis batteries as it has connection points for up to three battery banks. But, since it will boil batteries it has to go.
My plan now is to install the Progressive Dynamics 9270 in place of the Pro Marine. This will be connected to only the house batteries and will charge on either shore power or generator.
To keep my chassis batteries topped up when camping, I'm also installing the Xantrex Echo Charger. It is a 'parasitic' charger that can such up to 15 amps from the house battery bank to charge the chassis batteries. I won't have much other than the generator starter connected to the chassis batteries, it seems that 15 amps should be enough.
The tech at Progress Dynamics had only one suggestion, and that was to go with the 80 amp unit if possible. The current charger is wired to the 120v panel on a 15-amp circuit, and the 9270 is the largest that can run on 15 amps.
While I have 520 Ah to charge, I won't be running all that much off the house batteries at once and think that the 70-amp charger is enough.
Looking for any feedback or suggestions that people have. I'm sure I've missed something and hope to find out before it's too late.
One question is what size cable to use to connect the new charger to the house battery bank with. I was planning to go with #8.
Richard
Depends on the lencth of the run,,#6 should do it.>>>Dan
Charger is on the driver side - battery bank directly across it on the passenger side. Distance only about 8 feet at most.
Those are 260 AH batteries. Are you running them in series or parallel or both? How are you getting 520AH?
12 V or 24V
They are in series/parallel. 12v and 520 Ah is the end result. It was about all the battery that would fit into the space available. Had to set it up with the Hydrolink system since the back battery will be really difficult to access for filling - they are situated one behind the other, 4 deep.
I would still go with #6 to offset the charger putting out max to a large bank that has been run down to 50% or lower. Evan tho you state you won't be pulling that much current at one time,, the charger will attempt to produce max available to a low bank.>>>Dan (What can it hurt??)