If the "float" current is less than 1% (100 AH battery bank, or 1 amp) when full and tow vehicle is running-Would not even give it a second thought. And the current/voltage at the trailer battery bank. Then drive back home (with AC power) for many more weeks before the next trip.Ī few hours randomly at 14.2 volts vs 13.x volts-I think the batteries will age/cycle out before failing from over charging/venting.Ĭheck the charging voltage of your car's battery. Most people drive a couple of days for 8 hours, then "camp" for days at a time. Unless you are driving 8 hours per day 5+ days per week with fully charge battery bank-I would not worry about needing a float capable charger. Floating is great if you have AC power (24x7) and/or batteries that sit unused when "charging power is available" for long periods of time (i.e., RV that is mostly AC powered-Perhaps weekend/seasonal trips). The third one is an actual battery charger.īut, I would not worry about "floating" AGMs vs "charging" at 14.2 volts. I think I need a charge controller that will prevent overcharging. My concern is that I could be driving around with fully charged batteries and the alternator will maintain my AGMs at 14.2V in float - which might be for hours. My AGMs are supposed to float at 13.2-13.4V. Using an inverter in the cab and then snaking the wires out windows seems a bit Mickey Mouse. Honestly, I am a bit squeamish about mounting an inverter under the hood of my car. Even if I could get AC power to the trailer, the charging from that power converter would not be very effective. I respect the theoretical efficacy of the inverter followed by a charger, but that brings me to a significant limitation in my system: I do not have an inverter with a built-in battery charger in my RV all I have is a WF power converter. The two charge controllers that you recommend are really just replacements for the battery isolator that I was going to install, but your alternatives are definitely worth considering. Re: Charging AGM Batteries from Car Alternator Here is one (don't know anything about the vendor or product, just a starting point for your research): They will take "12 volts" and output a higher voltage (13.8 volts or more) to charge the battery bank. You can also look for DC to DC battery chargers. Much better overall charging current/charging function. If vehicle towing time is going to be a significant source of charging power-I would look at the Inverter=>AC battery charger. Includes a battery disconnect circuit-Plus if you like it, the RV solar array can recharge the battery in the two vehicle too (at the the Midnite will do this-The Xantrex may too). But I would suggest the other two I linked to above. It is PWM, so it shouldn't care that it is a car alternator not a solar panel, plus it is hooked up to a trimetric battery monitor, so it should do a particularly excellent job of preventing overcharging. To learn more about how charges affect different batteries, click here to read How to Charge and When to Charge?.Question number two is whether the Trimetric solar charge controller (SC-2030) would be a good choice for this. This means the AGM battery would only be able to recharge up to 70%. If you repeatedly only partially recharge an AGM battery, let’s say up to 70% every time, the battery may actually lose it’s ability to fully recharge to 100% in the long term. Smart AGM chargers does that all for you, so you don’t need to worry if you’ve got one of those. In fact, you’re supposed to slightly over-charge the batteries to give them a “top up”. Charging AGM batteries requires you to fully recharge the battery. For example, lithium batteries may be partially charged for a while without significantly harming the batteries. For this reason, charging AGM batteries is different and requires special charging procedures. Laptop batteries are lithium while AGM batteries are lead acid. In fact, the batteries used in laptops are a completely different technology. Many people believe that charging AGM batteries is similar to charging their laptop battery, but of course this is not true.
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