Journey with Confidence RV GPS App RV Trip Planner RV LIFE Campground Reviews RV Maintenance Take a Speed Test Free 7 Day Trial ×
RV Trip Planning Discussions

Go Back   iRV2 Forums > RV SYSTEMS AND TECHNOLOGIES FORUMS > RV Systems & Appliances
Click Here to Login
Join iRV2 Today

Mission Statement: Supporting thoughtful exchange of knowledge, values and experience among RV enthusiasts.
Reply
  This discussion is proudly sponsored by:
Please support our sponsors and let them know you heard about their products on iRV2
 
Thread Tools Search this Thread Display Modes
 
Old 06-26-2013, 08:57 AM   #1
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Jun 2012
Location: Cheyenne, Wyoming
Posts: 385
Balancing Battery Charger, Solar Controller, and Trimetric

Don't believe I've seen this discussed. Thinking about disconnecting my WFCO 8955 converter charger and installing a Progressive Dynamics PD 9245C much closer to the batteries for charging on shore power. The WFCO is 15 to 20 foot of 10 gauge wire away from the GC2's. I believe I would need to monitor a full charge cycle with the Trimetric then set P1, P2, and P3 accordingly then set the solar controller voltages to match. Sound about right? Anyone done this?

Jeff
unyalli is offline   Reply With Quote
Join the #1 RV Forum Today - It's Totally Free!

iRV2.com RV Community - Are you about to start a new improvement on your RV or need some help with some maintenance? Do you need advice on what products to buy? Or maybe you can give others some advice? No matter where you fit in you'll find that iRV2 is a great community to join. Best of all it's totally FREE!

You are currently viewing our boards as a guest so you have limited access to our community. Please take the time to register and you will gain a lot of great new features including; the ability to participate in discussions, network with other RV owners, see fewer ads, upload photographs, create an RV blog, send private messages and so much, much more!

Old 06-26-2013, 11:28 PM   #2
Member
 
varankins3's Avatar
 
Georgie Boy Owners Club
Join Date: Oct 2012
Location: Colorado (summer) Key West (winter)
Posts: 70
Are you full-time in Cheyenne? Did you do your solar yourself? We are just south of you in a little town north of Denver and we are having problems keeping our 3 interstate batts charged...actually we can't get them to fully charge. We used a hydrometer last Sun. and after 3 hours of charging they showed only 12.25. I used the equalizer on them yesterday for 4 hours and it brought them up to 12.5. I think we abused them the past 3 years due to ignorance of upkeep and also when our inverter/charger blew up last summer and I had to keep the fridge going on the batts for 3 days in 100 degree heat until we got it fixed. So we are trying to figure out if A) we need new batts; B) if new batts, get 3 new 12v deep cycle or reconfigure the front for 4 Triton 6v; C) maybe we need that charge controller.
We live full-time in our RV and really like to dry camp whenever to save money. I only use parks during these hot days as I hate to sweat!! We plan to dry camp all winter in Key West at the Naval Air Station and you can't run your gen at night. Any suggestions??
__________________
Junebug and Shortstuff Rankins
2000 Georgie Boy Cruise Master
Full-time since 2010
varankins3 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-27-2013, 11:23 AM   #3
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Jun 2012
Location: Cheyenne, Wyoming
Posts: 385
Mr. and Mrs. Rankins I live in Cheyenne. I retired from the Air Force here and now do IT for a living.

Sounds to me like you have a bad battery. Have you tried charging them one at a time to see which one is bad? I assume they're 12 volt batteries.

Solar has been a fun lab experiment for me about 8 months now. I learned real quick a 200 watt system is barely enough. Best thing anyone can do is install a battery monitor of some type and learn real time power usage. Then design a system. I have two Sam's Club GC2's in series giving me 225AH capacity. When I ran them down to around 50% the little 15 amp Sunsaver with 190 watts of solar input could not properly recharge them.

Jeff
unyalli is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-28-2013, 06:42 AM   #4
Senior Member
 
wa8yxm's Avatar
 
Damon Owners Club
Workhorse Chassis Owner
Join Date: Mar 2009
Posts: 24,024
Can't tell you about the tri-metric, as for the solar controller. If you are on shore power whichever has the higher output (PDI or Solar) will charge. The other will "Idle" worst case (Actually best case) is the Solar "Tricks" the PDI into thinking "FULL" and puts it in float mode till the sun goes down.

NOTE: this is good because... it means during the hottest portion of the day the PDI is idling and Solar is providing power.. This leaves more for the air conditioners.

Then as the sun goes down and the temps drop and the voltage in the park comes up a few volts due to less A/C action... The PDI takes over.
__________________
Home is where I park it!
wa8yxm is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-28-2013, 07:05 AM   #5
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Jun 2012
Location: Cheyenne, Wyoming
Posts: 385
Let me clarify something. I will never be on shore power and solar power at the same time. I plan a sort of hybrid deal. My Champion 2000i inverter generator covered by a quiet box will start the day powering the coffee pot and PD9245C smart charger/converter which will bring the batteries up quick. The solar input breaker will be off since last night. At some point I will shut down the generator then turn on the solar input breaker. Now a small 15 amp Morningstar Sunsaver MPPT solar controller fed by 260 watts of solar panel can finish the job and power other low power devices.

Jeff
unyalli is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-28-2013, 07:25 AM   #6
Member
 
Dadd's Avatar
 
Freightliner Owners Club
Join Date: Mar 2012
Location: Canon City, CO
Posts: 79
There is some really good information on these issues on Handy Bob's web site.

HandyBob's Blog « Making off grid RV electrical systems work
__________________
2016 Winnebago Forza 36G
2013 Wrangler Unlimited
Canon City, Colorado
Dadd is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-28-2013, 08:45 AM   #7
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Jun 2012
Location: Cheyenne, Wyoming
Posts: 385
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dadd View Post
There is some really good information on these issues on Handy Bob's web site.

HandyBob's Blog « Making off grid RV electrical systems work
Yes there is, that's where I began my solar life. Took a couple days but read his entire site. A lot of reading, a lot of thinking. I know he's adamant about the Trimetric and I now have one. To use it fully I need to set the P1, P2, and P3 settings correct. The PD will start the day providing up to 45 amps at 14.4 un-temperature compensated bulk volts then at some point the voltage will drop to 13.6 absorb volts. These numbers are way different from my solar controller with 14.6 temperature compensated absorb volts and up to 15 bulk volts.

In a number of discussions the mention of the higher charge voltage winning has come up. I can't see allowing two different chargers to argue over who gets to charge the battery. Am I missing something? This seems dangerous.
unyalli is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-28-2013, 02:46 PM   #8
Senior Member
 
Tony Lee's Avatar
 
Join Date: Sep 2012
Location: Tasmania now, USA/Canada/Alaska in April
Posts: 2,473
There is no reason to manually switch the various sources on an off. Solar + mains + engine running can all be active at the same time without problems. Depending on internal impedances and other factors, normally one souce will be doing all the work while the others idle, but sometimes you will see two sources supplying part of the current each.
As mentioned, sometimes one charging source will be "fooled" by another but this will resolve itself without causing undue effects.

BTW a charger with no temperature compensation will normally be set a little lower to allow for when the ambient temperature is high and the battery temperature is also high and it would be unsafe to charge to a higher voltage thereby going well past the gassing point, whereas with temperature compensation you will often see up to 0.4V higher when the battery is cold than at normal temperatures. This is because charging a cold battery to only 14.4V would result in undercharge
__________________
Tony Lee - International Grey Nomad. Picasa Album - Travel Map
RVs. USA - Airstream Cutter; in Australia - MC8 40' DIY Coach conversion & OKA 4x4 MH; in Germany - Hobby Class C; in S America - F350 with 2500 10.6 Bigfoot camper
Tony Lee is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-28-2013, 11:20 PM   #9
Member
 
varankins3's Avatar
 
Georgie Boy Owners Club
Join Date: Oct 2012
Location: Colorado (summer) Key West (winter)
Posts: 70
I am now panicking...my batts still aren't charging even though the charger light is on. The voltage has now dropped into the danger zone 11.7 or so. I am afraid to use the voltmeter as I have never been schooled in using it. Every post I see on this subject assumes you know how to use one and tells me to check the inverter/charger (it is a Xantrex Freedom 458 made in 1999) and all I know is it is lit up and the small fuse is ok inside it. I don't know where to "touch" the leads from the voltmeter to even know if the charger part is really working. I do know the fuses and breakers are ok where the shore power comes in. Is there some instructional video or pictures that would tutor me in how to check all these connections? We can't get into Camping World until July 16 and my batts will be REALLY dead by then.
__________________
Junebug and Shortstuff Rankins
2000 Georgie Boy Cruise Master
Full-time since 2010
varankins3 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-29-2013, 03:56 AM   #10
Senior Member
 
Tony Lee's Avatar
 
Join Date: Sep 2012
Location: Tasmania now, USA/Canada/Alaska in April
Posts: 2,473
Assuming your set up allows charging the house batteries from the engine alternator, try starting the engine and run it at high idle for say 20 minutes and see if the voltage on the house batteries increases.

As for your meter. Hard to generalise instructions but the DC voltage range is marked with an "=" symbol (but has one line dashed) and if there is a range of numbers, set it on 20. Leads plugged into the red and black sockets usually also marked with + and - and hold the free end of the red lead on the positive terminal of the battery and the black one on the negative terminal. Meter may also have a separate power-on switch as well.
[Measuring DC voltages on 12V batteries is generally a safe procedure provided you are careful to put the leads only on the terminals. Measuring mains voltages has obvious safety issues so leave that alone for now]

If the battery voltage does go up then you might suspect the shore power charger. Otherwise it is likely the batteries have had it, but that would need to be confirmed by carrying out a crude load test using your meter to monitor the battery voltage first with no charging taking place and no load, and then by switching a couple of lights on and seeing how quickly the voltage drops. Trouble is it takes a long time to describe, but only seconds to demonstrate and a rig with problems isn't a good time to be undertaking RV electrics 101 by remote control

Is there anyone around who could give you a few pointers. Many motorhomers have learned the basics and are usually happy to be asked for advice.
__________________
Tony Lee - International Grey Nomad. Picasa Album - Travel Map
RVs. USA - Airstream Cutter; in Australia - MC8 40' DIY Coach conversion & OKA 4x4 MH; in Germany - Hobby Class C; in S America - F350 with 2500 10.6 Bigfoot camper
Tony Lee is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-29-2013, 04:22 PM   #11
Member
 
varankins3's Avatar
 
Georgie Boy Owners Club
Join Date: Oct 2012
Location: Colorado (summer) Key West (winter)
Posts: 70
we woke up this morning and the batt indicator lights were totally off. My fridge had quit working. There was enough juice in the batts to put the fridge on LP but not on "AC"...the "Low DC" light would flash in that position.

So I rechecked the fuse...it is good. There is power coming in to the inverter/charger. We can't charge up the house batts by running the engine on the coach...isn't set up that way. So not knowing any thing else to do, we ran out to AutoZone and bought a battery charger Probably should have one anyways. It shows it is charging so I guess that says something.
__________________
Junebug and Shortstuff Rankins
2000 Georgie Boy Cruise Master
Full-time since 2010
varankins3 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-30-2013, 10:57 AM   #12
Member
 
varankins3's Avatar
 
Georgie Boy Owners Club
Join Date: Oct 2012
Location: Colorado (summer) Key West (winter)
Posts: 70
have had the battery charger on 10A since yesterday afternoon and when we checked this a.m. the meter shows the batteries are charged 75%...quite an improvement. The Heart interface shows 13V but the red light is still on over the pictures of the batteries (battery condition?). So the outside charger is working but the 458 charger is still not working. Does this prove the 458 is toast on the charger side??
__________________
Junebug and Shortstuff Rankins
2000 Georgie Boy Cruise Master
Full-time since 2010
varankins3 is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply

Tags
battery, solar



Currently Active Users Viewing This Thread: 1 (0 members and 1 guests)
 
Thread Tools Search this Thread
Search this Thread:

Advanced Search
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off
Trackbacks are Off
Pingbacks are Off
Refbacks are Off


» Featured Campgrounds

Reviews provided by


All times are GMT -6. The time now is 03:47 AM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.8 Beta 1
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.