Charging House Battery(ies) - Gen, Solar, ? Idea

[JeepDaddy]

I have an idea that I haven't seen discussed before.

Objective: Charge the house battery(ies) during extended boondocking trips.

Solution 1: Solar – Expensive, not enough sun in Seattle (this year is an exception)
Solution 2: Inverter Generator – Expensive, noisy, theft, fuel can
Solution 3: 12V wiring from truck – slooooow, too much voltage drop from alternator to camper battery.
Solution 4: Onboard welder with 120VAC outlet – expensive, basically another alternator with a different voltage output. Welder would be nice though.

Idea: add an 800-1000W inverter to truck and use an external charger or the house charger to charge the battery(ies). Running the truck every couple days for an 1 hour or so to charge the batteries would not be a problem. I like this idea because it would be simple, inexpensive and does not involve a lot of extra equipment.

Would this work? Any thoughts?

[JeepDaddy]

I have an idea that I haven't seen discussed before.

Objective: Charge the house battery(ies) during extended boondocking trips.

Solution 1: Solar – Expensive, not enough sun in Seattle (this year is an exception)
Solution 2: Inverter Generator – Expensive, noisy, theft, fuel can
Solution 3: 12V wiring from truck – slooooow, too much voltage drop from alternator to camper battery.
Solution 4: Onboard welder with 120VAC outlet – expensive, basically another alternator with a different voltage output. Welder would be nice though.

Idea: add an 800-1000W inverter to truck and use an external charger or the house charger to charge the battery(ies). Running the truck every couple days for an 1 hour or so to charge the batteries would not be a problem. I like this idea because it would be simple, inexpensive and does not involve a lot of extra equipment.

Would this work? Any thoughts?

[Don and Sarah]

Your welder idea may not as far off base as you think, Check out a company called Premir Power welder. It replaces the stock Alt and can weld, charge batteries and run DC tools and appliances. Between 800-1000 bucks

[jimandsue60]

I don't think your idea will work that well. A 1000 watt inverter might put out 8 amps at best if that. 120 volt chargers are going to require more amperage than that, unless you use a trickle charger which would take hours to bring your house batteries back up from 30% discharge. Running your truck at idle will most likely not produce enough electricity to keep the inverter from falling off line. You would have to bring the idle up considerably. I think your best bet would be a honda eu2000 type generator.

Jim

[Erich]

It's not that the inverter wouldn't have enough power to run the battery charger, your wasting power trying to convert 12V to 120V by inverter and then back to 12V by transformer. It's not efficient. Go with a 1K Honda and good battery charger.