Battery charging question

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55wed55

Member
Joined
May 14, 2015
Posts
24
Location
Northeast Ohio
I?m planning on doing some boondocking in my 5th wheel this year. Bought a 2011 Crossroads Cruiser last May. Since the trailer is in storage until April I have been doing a lot of research online. I plan on putting in 4 - 6 volt batteries and an inverter to run a computer, TV, satellite system and small appliances.  I know I can?t run the air or microwave on batteries and that?s fine with me.

Working on the phased approach. Batteries, battery monitor, portable generator, inverter and eventually solar panels. So far I bought a Honda 2000w generator and a Trimetric TM 20030-RV battery monitor. (Not installed yet).

Since I live in NE Ohio I plan on doing a lot of State Park camping in nearby PA and NY this summer. And probably going out west next year.

One question I have is about using the generator to charge the batteries. My 5th wheel has 50 amp service. I think this is because it is wired for a 2nd air conditioner in the bedroom, which is not there. I have a 50 to 30 amp adapter and used it last summer in different campgrounds and everything was fine.

When boondocking I plan on using the generator to just charge the batteries and run it as little as possible. Can I buy a 50 amp to 15 amp adapter (I see them on Amazon) http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002CCLFUI?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00 and run a regular 15 amp extension cord from the trailer to the generator? Will this charge the batteries? I?m a little confused on this because I see others on line that have a battery charger mounted near the batteries and they hook up the generator to that charger.

Also any suggestions on a good inverter?
 
Your onboard charging system doesn't care where the 120v powers comes from, nor whether it is 50A, 30A, 20A or 15A.  Depending on the charger capacity , it might draw 10A or so at max output. but probably less than that most of the time. So yes, just use the appropriate adapters and plug in the trailer and it will charge and run other stuff, up to the limit the genset can provide.

The reason for the separate charger is some rigs is that they don't want to power the entire RV off a small genset and only want to charge batteries. One easy way to do that is to have a second, separate charger when not using shore power and simply plugging that into the genset outlet. If you don't want to run anything else off the genset while charging, that may be a simple method.

Magnum makes excellent inverter/chargers with built in transfer switches, but since you already have a converter/charger onboard, you will probably want to install just an inverter. There are numerous ways to wire an inverter into an RV, so the equipment choice may depend somewhat on how you want to go about that.
 
That generator should  be more then enough to run you onboard charger light TV ect.  You may also have enoif power to run one of your Ac units.  But if your batterys are low it will be to much for a 2000 watt generator.... If money no object I would up grade to the 3000 watt..... Also be warned most state parks don't allow a generator to run during quite hours. No matter how quiet it is
 

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