Arrid Twin/Charge dual Battery controller

I asked about these Arrid units and could find no decent feed back
Came across an ad for them and decided to take a gander
The price of the unit bleep tered me and looked like it had more to offer than we needed
I bought a Redarc battery isolator and my next door neighbour helped me isntall it who is an electrician. Has been fitted for 18 mth and we go bush 3 weekends out of 4 using the fridge and 1 or 2 Versa fluorescent lights.
Others in our group have Redarc fitted and no complaints which is a good recomendation. Some had fancy expensive units that failed and installed Redarc as replacements

Giday Andy, Just purchased an Arid 3 stage 12volt 20 amp batery charger(different to what your looking at) and it works real good. I have 1, 100 amp deep cycle Battery from Powercrank in Orong Rd ($132) for my camper as I have 2 starting bateries in 4wd. No problems so far with charger as I have had it for 24 hours now. PPs if buying Arid light Fluro make sure that you get the + & - the right way round as I have just spent Days trying to figure out what I did wrong with a Multi meterAround Oz 06/2004

Hi Andy,

I have an Arrid Twincharge III ( 20 Amp ) installed in my camper trailer, it is charging 2 x 110AH AGM batteries and seems to do the job quite well. I have dual battery setup in my vehicle as well for extra reserve and for trips away without the camper. The vehicle batteries ( wet starter + wet deep cycle) are isolated with a Piranha DBE150S, the arrid is connected via a fuse and relay to the camper trailer. The relay prevents the arrid from discharging the vehicle battery whilst the engine is not running. Using the arrid twin charge means that you can run 6mm cable to the camper, any voltage drop will be negated because the arrid is a DC/DC convertor and will step up the input voltage ( 8.5 - 14 volts ) and provide 15 volts output. The arrid ensures that the camper batteries are fully charged.
I have tried using 12mm cables through heavy connectors etc( without the Arrid Twincharge ). and whilst it works, the batteries would never fully charge.
The arrid also uses the pulse technique to prevent sulphation of the battery plates.
In my opinion the arrid twincharge is worth the money.

Regards,
Mark

Hi Andy,

In my case it takes around 11 hours to fully charge both batteries or 5.5 hours per battery. This is assuming that I have discharged charged them to 20% ( SOC )state of charge ( used up 80% ). I will not discharge them below 20% as it will cause the batteries to have a very short life span.

If you want to calculate the time required the following should help.

Assume you have 100 A/Hour Battery.
Divide 100A/Hour by 20A ( max charge from Arrid ) = 5 Hours.

This is assuming you have used 80% of the batteries capacity.
You should not use more than 80% of the batteries capacity, ie 80A/Hour as battery life span will be very short.
Due to inefficiencies in recharging process you need to put about 20% more in than you get out, this is due to energy lost as heat etc.

Hope this sort of explains why you use 80% but put 100% back in !

In my case the 220A/Hour battery bank in the camper will run my 40L Engel, a couple of fluro lights for 6 days, no longer than that. This is assuming that you keep the fridge in a cool place, not in direct sunlight and minimize opening etc. If weather is extremely hot it would be less than 6 days, if it is cold it would be more.

If you use your vehicle during the day and have an auxillary battery fitted, you can use it power up the arrid twin charge and recharge the camper batteries for an hour or two without needing to run the engine. Just be aware that the arrid will drain the battery down to 8.5 volts before it stops, this will totally stuff the auxillary battery. I never like to drain a battery below 11.5 volt ( 20% SOC ).
In theory if you were to drive your vehicle for 2-3 hours a day came back to camp and put the arrid on for 2 hours a day( without engine running ) you could camp indefinitely. In reality I rarely move the vehicle once we set up camp, if I do it is just to collect some wood etc. and engine is not running for long. But I can use the 100A/Hour auxillary in the car and this gives me around 2 - 2.5 days extra.

I am looking at fitting a solar panel ( or maybe 2) when funds allow.

By the way, I only use the engel for food stuff, I have a 3 way fridge in the camper and use it for drinks. This way if weather is really hot the food in the engel is icy cold and only the drinks suffer. Mind you the 3 way does work very well, but if 40 degrees outside you need to cycle the beers through the top freezer section and replace as you go. Not keen on keeping meat in the 3 way during really hot weather.

Regards,
Mark