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oradba69
22nd November 2014, 01:44 PM
I must have he only Traxide system in South Africa and am quite happy with it.
I am running a 70 AH Lead Crystal as my second battery in my Disco 4. Running my fridge it does drain quite a bit and if I am camping I dont run the car enough to keep it fully charged.
I have a Ctek mxs 10 that I use to charge the batteries.
Quick question or two:
1. Can I charge the batteries while the fridge is running?
2. To which battery do I connect the charger? Main or LC aux?
3. Which is the best mode to run the charger in?
https://www.aulro.com/afvb/images/imported/2014/11/249.jpg

Currently running it in 'supply' mode connected to aux battery.

drivesafe
22nd November 2014, 03:01 PM
Hi oradba69, first off, SUPPLY mode will not charge batteries properly and is designed to primarily to power your fridge when a battery is not available.

NOTE, you will not harm the battery using the SUPPLY mode, as lone as you give the battery a proper charger every so often.

If you use the charger long term in SUPPLY mode, you will damage your batteries, and this is something that is a common cause of premature failure of caravan and motor home batteries.

Now it can be a bit more tricky charging a battery while powering a fridge off that battery.

If your charge is not that SMART and most are NOT, what can happen is, the charger can fully charge a low battery while the fridge is connected.

So far so good.

And once the battery is charged, the charger will normally go into FLOAT mode.

Again, so far so good.

But here is where problems can arise.

If the fridge cycles OFF and then some time later, when it cycles back ON, it can cause a small voltage drop at the battery and the battery charger can “THINK” the battery is low and it goes back into it’s full charge mode.

This in itself is still not a problem, but many chargers have a minimum TIME based full charging cycle.

This is where problems can occur and you can cook some types of batteries.

If the charger is a genuine SMART type charger, it can still go into it’s full charge mode but it continues to monitor the current the battery is drawing and if the current level drops below a given point, the charger “KNOWS” the battery is fully charged and switches back to the FLOAT mode.

While you are “PROBABLY” safe using the “AGM” mode, if you use the NORMAL BATTERY PROGRAM mode and while it will take slightly longer to fully charge any type of battery, if low when you start, but even if the charger stay at it’s fully charge mode, it is unlikely to have any effect on the battery, as long as you do not leave the combination of the fridge, the battery and the charger connected together for more than a few days at a time.

My recommendation is, if you want to run the fridge permanently from the battery, then remove the charger for long periods of time so the battery is allowed to be discharged by the fridge, say down to 60 to 75% and then reconnect the charger.

BTW, you can connect your charger anywhere in the system and fully charge all the batteries, as long as the common voltage of the batteries has not dropped below 50% or 12.0v.

If the voltage drops below 12.0v, you will need to connect to the cranking battery to be able to charge both batteries.

oradba69
23rd November 2014, 04:12 PM
As usual, a proper explanation.
Thanks a lot it is much appreciated.