Batery charging system??

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Ron Mitchell

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Sep 26, 2011
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Hi, my wife and I just purchased a 1989 Nothland polar 8.5. We took it our this weekend for it's shake down. The 12 volt system did not work very well. We were told by the previous owner that the battery would charge if we had it plugged in to 110 or a generater. We used a generater but did not help. I had the battery checked  ;)and I replaced with a new deep cell. We have a converter in the camper. Can anyone help? We are new at all of this, but had a great time camping. 
 
Most converters change 110 VAC to 12 VDC and simultaneously charge the battery.  If this is what you have the battery should have charges while you were plugged into shore power.  Did you purchase the new battery before or after the trip?

All of your lighting is 12VDC.  If the lighting worked on shore power but not on battery and the battery isn't charging, then the converter is converting but not charging.
 
Using a generator to charge a battery can take anywhere up to 10 hours to fully charge.  Running a generator for an hour or so will do nothing.  First things first.  Since this is a truck camper? do you have a charge line from your truck to the campers plug in?  If not get it working.  Second, to determine if the converter/charger is actually working or not will take some electrical knowledge and a good VOM.  Start by checking the converter to be sure it is actually working.  Be sure all the fused/breakers are working properly.  This stuff is not rocket science, but it does take time to trace and check things out.
 
I had a Honda 2000eu that I took along with my 28' Outback.  It would supply shore power for the converter and A/C needs via the plugs on the front of the genny, but to recharge batteries, you had to use a cable with a special plug that went from the front of the Honda directly to the battery.  That way took about 2-3 hrs to charge the Group 27 battery.

YMMV,

Blaine
 
Nickens said:
I had a Honda 2000eu that I took along with my 28' Outback.  It would supply shore power for the converter and A/C needs via the plugs on the front of the genny, but to recharge batteries, you had to use a cable with a special plug that went from the front of the Honda directly to the battery.  That way took about 2-3 hrs to charge the Group 27 battery.

YMMV,

Blaine
Click to expand...

Sorry, who ever told you that lied to you.  That 12VDC charge cable will only supply about 2 to maybe 4 amps.  That is probably the slowest method of charging the battery.  Charging through your converter can supply as much as 25 to 55 amps to the battery.  That number of course depends on what your converter is rated for.  But even the cheapest bottom line converter is 25 amps.
 
I took my first boondocking trip in my '02 Lance TC full of water, propane, and one group 27 battery standard. I used a 1000w generator as shore power in the morning to make coffee. Then I would let it run about 2 hours and the monitor read out shown full charge. Probally close enough. Then late in the day near sunset we ran it another 2 hours or so. We were never too low on 12v power to run our lights. radio, water pump, control circuits to the fridge and hot water DSI. We even used a small 150w inverter to power our Combo TV/DVD to watch a few movies. The on-board converter seemed to charge fairly quickly. Even a 1000w gen. was enough to power the camper and charge too. And it sips gas, only uses .16 gal per hour.  The only time it was loaded heavily was when it brewed the coffee maker, about 900w. After that, the heat plate was low in watts, about 175w.

Conserving water was more of a challenge than electrical. I have 40gal fresh, 26gal gray, and 26gal black. With no way of getting more fresh water and no way to dump tanks, you have to watch that even closer.

Overall it was a great experience and can't wait to do it again soon. This time in colder weather. Hopefully even more challenging.

So hopefully when everything checks out functionally for you, a little bit of generator time to your shore plug should do the trick.  ;D

Rough-n-it smoothly,
CarolinaCamper
 
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