Battery Charging Set-up in Wheelhouse

[lookingforluck]

Hello all, looking for some advice here. I am getting a generator and looking for the best set up to charge the batteries during the day / for watching tv. Currently I run my house off of 12v although it is wired for 110 also. I currently use just one deep cycle battery. I do not have a forced air furnace and efficient use of lights so I have not needed more than one. I have heard of just a plain charger, onboard charger, and/or inverter combo's but not sure what works the best. Thanks for any advice!!!!!!

LFL

[JeffS]

You could try setting up two 12 volt batteries in a series. Otherwise, we have solar panels on our house and if we just use the lights and radio we get a weekends worth of charge out of our 12 volts (lights are only on at night). The TV will drain your batteries very fast.

Last year we did hook a charger on the batteries when they went low during the NFL playoffs. It worked well.

[Insp Gadget]

Part of the answer is how good is your generator, not in watts or noise, but the sine wave of the ac it gives off. The reason I mention the sine wave is we could not run our microwave off the gen, 2500 watts for a 1000w mic, it ran but wouldn't heat. we believe the sine wave of our gen had square corners and was not a rounded alternating current wave. had some tests done but it was years ago so I don't remember any more stats. We believe it may have dimineshed the amount our charger worked too.

We ran 1 group 27 with lots of stuff through an inverter, 27"tv, 42 inch ceiling fan, dvd or satellite, some lights etc. We would get through the first night and run our generator for 8 hours during day with a deep cycle charger. It couldn't recharge the battery enough to make the second night. We were running the ceiling fan 24hrs to keep heat even as we had a tall house. (1.5 stories loft for kids - family truckster model)

We are currently building a wheel house and will have 2 batts in series, the deep cycle charger, and I'm going to check out the 12V output on the gen as a charger, haven't looked into that yet. The big thing we learned is that the battery temperature is VERY important when you look at efficiency in both discharge and charge. Ours was stowed in a cold place. this time they will be open to room temp, and with 2, not draining as far as fast I'm expecting that 8 or so hours of charging each day will give us many days of use. I have used this set up at the hunting shack and about 5-6 hours a day of gen and charging powers the 28ft trailer WITH forced air heat all night and day when we're out for all the days in a row that we want. have never run out of batts..

Good luck!

[lookingforluck]

I am going to get a Honda EU 2000. So I should use that to power a battery charger? What about an inverter? What do most people use in their wheelhouses?

Thanks, LFL

[MuleShack]

I would say look at installing an inverter if your building or remodeling.

The inverter will allow use of the 110V from the generator and also use extra juice from the generator and charge your deep cycles at the same time.

The inverter is what came with my house and seems like a better choice than simply putting in a battery charger.

[Insp Gadget]

I would have both. The Gen will power everything and the charger will recharge the batt. Then when you want real quiet the inverter will power anything 110v from your batt and the 12v is always good. Keep your batt warm - room temp and it's worth having an inverter, just make sure your inverter is big enough for your tv and whatever else is 110v. a tube type tv will briefly draw 10 times its rated wattage at startup. I have a tv that draws 82 watts, but take 800 watts to start. my 400 watt inverter does fine.

[MuleShack]

Good point about the inverter...

I was thinking converter unit in my house, where it will take the 110 coming in and run the outlets and lights and charge the battery at the same time.

An inverter would save the generator time at night. Good call.

[lookingforluck]

anyone ever use a onboard charger like the one you use in a boat? Thinking it might be good to use one as I could hard wire to the battery and then just hook up the generator and let it do the charging.

[sparkydm]

Just a reminder to those using 2 batteries-connect them in parallel not in series. A series connection would give you 24 volts. Just connect positive to positive and negative to negative.

[cold one sd]

anyone ever use a onboard charger like the one you use in a boat? Thinking it might be good to use one as I could hard wire to the battery and then just hook up the generator and let it do the charging.

My wheel house is wired for both 110v and 12v. The lights and fans run on 12v and I have an onboard charger hard wired to my batteries. In the evening I start my generator and charge my batteries while watching a movie or something on my tv which is plugged into a 110v outlet. I have smaller 30 amp 12v batteries which don't take a long time to charge and don't take up a lot of room. I run low amperage computer fans during the day which draw a small amount of curent. When at home I leave the onboard charger plugged in all the time which keeps the batteries charged and conditioned.

[dfv87]

Just a reminder to those using 2 batteries-connect them in parallel not in series. A series connection would give you 24 volts. Just connect positive to positive and negative to negative.

+1

[bassislife]

We have a 45 amp converter in our wheel house. We watch TV and movies during the day with the generator powering it and also putting a full charge in the 12 volt batteries to get us thru primetime fishing and overnight.

We also plug in the shack when we get home and keep the batteries charged and maintained for the next trip.

[lookingforluck]

If you have two batteries in parallel do you need to hook up a charger to both or only to one? Either with a onboard charger or conventional charge.

Thanks, LFL

[cold one sd]

When hooked in parallel you can hook up to just one. On my wheel house I have my battery wires coming to a central location and the onboard charger is hooked up to that which ties it to both of them.