Charging batteries while base camping

Hi Dan

Thanks for the reply

Normally you use an isolator or regulator to charge a battery from your vehicle, hence dual battery management systems. I was concerned I might have been doing harm to either my starting battery which is much smaller or to my camping battery which is a marine type. I would like to have something in place for future use as we camp for long periods at least once or twice a year.

I will still probably go solar in the near future.

David

David,

Dan's absolutely right. The $100+ isolators/regulators/battery management systems simply connect the auxilliary battery to the main battery once charging voltage is available, and disconnect when it's not. Exactly what you did manually. In practice, once the engine is running you have charging voltage, when it's stopped you don't. I'd connect and disconnect at idling speed to minimise any chance of transients, but basicly do exactly what you've done.

Cheers

John

Yep..

Some places allow gens between certain hours only to charge batteries. I think the problem generally is that people have just left the genny running 24/7 to power stuff, instead of just charging. You wouldn't leave your car running all night to run the fridge tho.

I would like to see more places allow quiet gennys within limited hours for charging purposes.

D

Good point Brian,

I would much rather listen to my Engel gennie than the Jackaroo at fast idle.

Pete

Hi all

The recent thread on a wind generator was about a unit from Jaycar. Seach for wind jaycar and you should find the thread.

It raised a few questions about suitability (high wind speed required (16-20 Knots), did it have reverse current protection, why did it specify an output voltage of 12-16V when it apparently has a regulator inbuilt, what does the voltage vs current curve look like, etc ??

I went and had a look at one at Jaycar and asked a lot of these questions which I have subsequently put in an email to the Store Manager who will supposedly get me the answers.

What I do no further to the previous thread is that in the manual that comes with it they show a picture of it connected to a battery as one of the uses. The guy I talked to said they tried one out at the beach (with no load though) and it "seemed to output 13.8 Volt" - but I stress this was no load.

While it is expensive ($400 odd from memory with only 12 months warranty) it may be a vialble option when out camping as long as you have enough wind but it only has an max output of 4Amp (which may be the "regulation" referred to which I would prefer to call current limiting) and if the batteries become very discharged they may take a while to come back up - and again only if you have enough wind.

Apparently it does output all the time (not just when it gets up to efective speed) and hence the reason for needing reverse current protection.

I still don't know answers to some questions and will post them if I get them.

Ken