Charging The Batteries From The TV While Running The Refrigerator On Battery

[mcgyver210]

I used 6g for Positive wire & no extra ground. Seems to work well with one battery although I did have major issues with how TM does their wiring which in a word was a JOKE!

Wait just a minute.......I asked about a year ago whether I should charge my batteries with my TV or should I have a generator. The consensus was a generator stating that it would take a long time with the tv. Now I have a new generator that I love but it only charges at 8 Amps.

So, can I make this wire-size mod to my tv and charge at 25 or more amps? thats three times as fast as my generator.

What about long jumper cables, I have seen a lot of people do this but I thought it was slower than the generator.

J

[Philip]

Originally Posted by jchmel9719

Wait just a minute.......I asked about a year ago whether I should charge my batteries with my TV or should I have a generator. The consensus was a generator stating that it would take a long time with the tv. Now I have a new generator that I love but it only charges at 8 Amps.

So, can I make this wire-size mod to my tv and charge at 25 or more amps? thats three times as fast as my generator.

What about long jumper cables, I have seen a lot of people do this but I thought it was slower than the generator.

J

J,

I assume that you plug your TM 110 volt plug into your generator when you want to charge your batteries. When you do this your charging rate is controlled by the charger in your TM - just as it is when you plug into a 110 volt plug at a campground. My TM charger is not a very high capacity unit and does not charge at high amperage. It works just fine for people who want to plug in overnight or days on end at a campsite since they have plenty of time to bring the batteries to full charge.

I don't think you would gain much charging capacity with the factory TM charger by increasing the wire size in the TM charging circuit since the charger capacity is itself not very large. This is why they did not bother to put larger wire size in the charging circuit.

So - this is why I decided to go with a separate very large wire size for the charging circuit from my TV to the TM. As I noted, you need a very large wire to get decent charging from the TV because there is only a small voltage difference between the TV battery and the TM batteries to drive the current into the TM batteries. You cannot afford hardly any voltage drop in the circuit or your current will drop considerably.

Since you now have a generator, you could go and buy yourself a good high output 110 charger and connect it to your TM batteries when running it off your generator. But, my gosh, you will have yet another piece of gear to drag about and store - not to mention the noise of a generator.

How do you desulfate and equalize ? I have 2 6V batteries. Thanks!

[Bill]

Originally Posted by jchmel9719

Wait just a minute.......I asked about a year ago whether I should charge my batteries with my TV or should I have a generator. The consensus was a generator stating that it would take a long time with the tv. Now I have a new generator that I love but it only charges at 8 Amps.

J

The generator has a battery charger output, but it will charge at only 8 amps max. Ignore it. Instead, you should plug your TM's shore power (AC) cord into the generator, as Philip suggests. This will fire up the TM's built-in battery charger, and no matter which charger it has, it can charge much faster than 8 amps.

Sorry this wasn't apparent in the earlier discussion that you referenced.

Bill

Originally Posted by Redhawk

How do you desulfate and equalize ? I have 2 6V batteries. Thanks!

I have this one:

http://www.amazon.com/Black-Decker-V...8719123&sr=8-4

Black & Decker VEC1093DBD Smart Battery 40/20/10/4 Amp Battery Charger

For a pair of 6 volt batteries you would have to desulfate and equalize both at the same time, keeping them in series.

My charger is similar to PopBeavers. It goes about 15.5V for an hour or so to desulphate/equalize once the batteries are fully charged. And I think we both use a 20A bulk charge setting as we have 220-240 Ah golf cart batteries with a recommended max bulk charge current of 1/10 of the Ah rating.

And Bill, I'm curious how we know that the Trailmanor's built-in charger will bulk charge at greater than 8 amps when plugged into 110VAC? Has somebody measured it? Actually, I doubt if the original, standard Marine/RV battery in my Elkmont *should* be charged at anything over 8A, given its 72Ah rating.

Another reason for my getting an external charger was it's 20A bulk charge, besides the desulphation/equalizer feature.

I got the external charger because my pair of group 24 Interstate RV/Marine batteries were just not working as well after 3 years as they did when new.

A few cycles of desulfate and equalize and in my estimation they are as good as they were when they were 2 years old, even though they are now 5 years old.

I recently got a float charger (what I used to know as a trickle charger) to top off my lawn mower battery. I also though I would use it over the winter on the one deep cycle battery that I have on my 2009.5 2720. However in the directions of this small flowat charger it recommends that it should not be used on deep cycle batterys. I understand one would not to use it if the battery is really low, but if one had a deep cycle battery that was in good condition and fully charged, could one use a charger like this to keep it topped off during cold months? Any harm? Thanks.

okay, so, will my generator (1600w inverter) power a 20/40A bulk ext battery charger? I think I am starting to figure this out. If I take this ext batt charger along, forget the charger on the generator (8A,) as well as the charger in the TM, and hook the ext charger to the batts directly, I can charge at 20+Amps?

Or the other option seems to be to beaf-up the wiring from the tv as discussed in this post and do it with the tv, which can also charge at 20+Amps.

I think my brain might be needing a charge.....Do I have this correct?