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From: Somewhere between Here & There Over the Hill
Very true. There is a 30A fuse block in the battery compartment...so it looks like there is some protection. Not exactly sure what all it protects though. There is also circuit breaker under the oven (assuming that is for the AC power), and another fuse block where the 70A converter/charger is at.
Typically there would be a fuse or circuit breaker (30a ish) for the 12+ line coming off the pigtail from the toe vehicle, another breaker or fuse on the 12v line to the converter/charger, and sometimes there is a small fused line for the stereo. I think they sometimes run the stereo direct to the battery instead of the fuse box to protect it from electronic noise.
Anyway the cable from the battery to the fuse box is often unprotected.
On the 110ac side the power cord may run directly to the breaker box if they are close, or the power cord might go to a ground fault interipter breaker in its own box, then continue to the main fuse box. If equipped with a generator, there is usually a breaker in its own box for that, too.
From: Somewhere between Here & There Over the Hill
I sure wish I had a place to park the trailer at my house...it would be so much easier than driving 20+ miles (rv storage) to go through the electrical system to see how it is ran.
Fortunately, I'll be picking it up Wednesday for our trip next weekend. I'll go through it to see how everything is connected.
As for the AC, I'm not certain if the trailer came this way, but there is a 25ft 50A cable tied directly to the circuit breaker panel and plugs into the 50A receptacle for the generator. I'll look to see if the generator has a separate breaker. Its an Onan 5500 if you are familiar with how they are typically setup.
It isn't unusual for a generator to be wired to a receptical, that the shore power cord plugs in to. The Onan would typically have a circuit breaker built in to the control pannel.
From: Somewhere between Here & There Over the Hill
That makes sense.
Converter/Chargers...learned something new this morning. The previous owner said they upgraded to the Progressive Dynamics Inteli-Power 9270, when they upgraded to the three Group 31 Exide Marine/RV Batteries. I think the total rating was 330 AH. I'm not certain what the charge rate would be for those particular batteries, but what I read said the charge rate should be around C/10 or C/8 for flooded cell batteries. He was charging those batteries at C/4.7, way higher than what they probably should have been, and may explain why those batteries were swollen and some if not all had a slight crack.
With that said, Trojan recommends a charge rate of 10-13%. Would it be worth it to downgrade to the Intel-Power 45 or 60 Amp? I guess part of maximizing the life of the batteries would be to charge them properly.
My battery banks gives me a 20-hour capacity rating of 225 AH for a total of 450 AH (not sure if the 20-hour capacity doubles to 40-hour?).
What the thoughts on staying with current charger or downgrading, and if I should downgrade, do I go with the 45 or 60 amp?
I don't think you have too much charger. 4 T-105's should be able to easily handle 70A of charging, with the proper wiring.
You have a 450 AH battery bank, and that is the number you need to reference for charge rates. Just because you will probably only ever use 225 of them doesn't change how you can charge them (you have 20hr rating of 450AH). The charger will very the amperage based on battery (panel) voltage. The 9270 is a great charger for that battery bank and off grid camping/recharging. With a smaller 45AH charger it would take a LONG time to go from 50-90%. If you where always dropping to 50% SOC the smaller charger may be better for battery life, but the 70AH charger will only put 70AH into the batteries when they are VERY low.
If you are in doubt call the Trojan hotline, but I am not sure you would see additional life out of the batteries for the cost of a different charger.
I've had good luck with the Exide Stowaway deep cycles in my bass boat. If you have an Academy Sports in your area you can get them there and there is a rebate on each one right now.
My guess would be you won't degrade battery life by much by keeping your current charger. It will only be putting out full current in bulk charge mode. Absorption mode will hold a preset
Voltage and charge current will decline as the batteries charge.
As noted above, a call to Trojan might be a good idea.
The PD chargers can, and will, go to full amperage in absorption mode but it generally will not last long as the battery SOC doesn't warrant boost mode. The great thing about the PD is the pendant for manual boost mode for decreased charge times while on the generator.
My Prosine Inverter/charger is programmable to the type and number of batteries I am using. I tell it I have deep cycle lead acids, how many, how configured, how large and it sets the charging pattern. I note when very low, it will charge my twin T-105's at 69a for a short time. As the charge starts to come up, the charge rate goes down. The unit has a digital control center inside the RV with a readout that shows everything going on in the 12v realm as well as the 120v realm including notifying me if there is a problem with the plug in hookup. It will automatically swing me over to the inverter in conditions of low hookup voltage and kill the inverter when battery voltage drops to my preset cut off point when not hooked up to shore power. Amazing all the stuff it does, but takes a college degree to program it....
From: Somewhere between Here & There Over the Hill
Sorry for the late reply everyone. I got real busy trying to get everything ready for Memorial Day weekend.
Those batteries are definitely rugged and got good use over the 5 days we were gone.
The charge pendent on my setup is definitely convenient and does exactly what it is supposed to do. It would be nice if there was something that showed the actual voltages, charge rate, and how much amps is left in a digital readout. The rig only has an LED bar readout when a button is pressed.
Here is a couple pictures of where we were at in the mountains of Kettle Falls, WA:
It can display amp hours used since full charge, or watts, and will show amps charging or discharging. You program in the capacity of your battery bank and it will also give you % of charge.
Not cheap and requires a bit of wiring, but it is neat to have.
In addition to the meter, you would need wiring with 2 twisted pair, and a shunt. I think I have a 500 amp 50 milivolt one on mine. I also have an in line fuse on the positive lead.
