Buying a battery charger to match my generator

[bilmac]

Looking at winter, and sometimes my solar panels don't keep up with my battery use at my homestead if I stay out there for many days. I use batterys to run a camp trailer, and it uses some power to run the furnace when it is cold.

I have one of the harbor Freight 800 watt generators, and I would like to use it if my panels get too far behind. I am surprised at how much the new breed of chargers cost. I don't think I need all the bells and whistles of the new chargers, I have one at home that runs on 110 volts, and the batteries get charged on that one periodically. I am thinking that an old fashoned simple charger that puts out from 6 to 10 amps is about what I need. Way I see it all I need to do is top off a battery occasionally as fast as possible without hurting the battery. Since I will be running a generator the faster I can charge them the better.

Trouble is I am having trouble locating a charger for reasonable money that puts out that much power. Any ideas? Is my logic OK?

[Ron 1]

the way i was thought is a fast charge often means the battery gets a hard surface charge and it will drain quickly. a slow charge gets the battery topped off with a solid charge that will last a lot longer.  just my two cents.   i have a small generator that has a 12 volt charge out let that works pretty good not much for a jump start. but it will charge a battery.     good luck in your search.
           rw 

[Empty Quiver]

Would it be more cost effective to bring another battery along? Say pull the trolling motor battery or perhaps a jumper pack that could be stored in the car for an emergency jump for the everyday vehicle?


Battery Plus is a good source you might consider contacting them about you charger.

[bilmac]

Yea , it's about time to buy a new set of batteries. I use two now, My solar panels are not where my trailer is, the trl sits in the shade. I charge one battery while I use the other. I suppose most of my problem is that the batteries are getting long in the tooth. I'll certainly do that before I pay the prices I see for most of the chargers. If I can find one for less than $30-35 I think it would be good to have one out there, You know, a guy can never have too many tools.   

[efremtags]

There's tons of models available on Amazon for under $50 in the 4-6A range. Thats plenty to supplement your solar with a few hrs a day on the genset.

Fast charge is relative, you can charge a battery safely with up to a C/5 rate. That means take the battery capacity and diving by 5, that's how many amps you can charge with. The rate of charge has little to do with capacity and ability to maintain charge for lead acid batteries. Most batteries can take a C/2 if they are solar specific type.

[bilmac]

Thanks yall  Now that I've done a bit more looking, I am starting to see the kind of chargers I had in mind.