Battery charging

[dernst]

I was told by an employee at camping world that if I connect my generator directly to my 6 volt batteries rather than go through the convertor, that the batteries would charge faster. Is that correct and is there any disadvantage in doing it? Thank you.

[Jerry01]

How are you going to connect it? Plug in a battery charger to the generator and then charge the batteries or use the DC out on the generator? What brand is your converter? We have a progressive dynamics converter and only charge the batteries through that and it works very well. Jerry.


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[ScottBrownstein]

Originally Posted by dernst

I was told by an employee at camping world that if I connect my generator directly to my 6 volt batteries rather than go through the convertor, that the batteries would charge faster. Is that correct and is there any disadvantage in doing it? Thank you.

Clearly the employee was not an electrician!!!! I wouldn't trust one of their guys for much.

[dernst]

I have a wfco converter 55 ah and a 2000 watt yahama generator. I was going to connect the dc directly to the battery.

[boondocking]

Your 2000 watt generator will supply at most 6.5 amps through the dc connection.
Better off to plug the shore power line into the generator and let the 55 amp converter do its thing or use an external (20-40 amp) charger.

[Flybob]

You will be much better off if you connect the RV to the 110V outlet on the generator and let the converter charge the battery. The 12V output from the generator not as efficient at charging as the converter.

[Brother Les]

If you charge up your battery through your converter, the converter will reduce (lower) the amount of charge input to a trickle charge the higher level the of charge that is in the battery.

If you charge your battery directly from the generator, you will get a higher and 'deeper' charge into your battery and there is no 'drop off' off charging as there is with the converter.

the tech is correct.

the disadvantage is that you can 'boil' your battery if you are not careful by charging it too long.

Use the converter.

[Too Tall]

I did a test today, coincidentally, to see which would charge faster, the WFCO or a Schumacher 12 amp charger. I left my two 6 volt batteries off charge for a couple of days so I'd have something to compare.

The Schumacher charged at about 8.5 amps initially and the WFCO was at about 6.5 amps. Within a few minutes the WFCO was down to 1/3 of an amp @ 13.2 volts. After connecting the old Schumacher, the charge was 2.5 amps @ 14.5 volts. This all occurred in about 15 mins as my batteries were no discharged much. However, in my experiment, the 12 amp Schumacher will charge faster than the WFCO. If the batteries were down enough to take over 12 amps, the WFCO would probably do a better job till I could put the Schmacher on to top them off.