Thread: camping solar/battery setup.

Hi Don and sorry mate, but while your auto electrician was trying to do what he thought was the right thing for you, the problem is that if he deemed the location as being potentially dangerous for a Marine type battery, then it would be dangerous for any other type of lead acid battery as well.


It is a misunderstanding caused by INCORRECT wording being used when describing a battery as being a “FULLY SEALED” type.


A “FULLY SEALED” type battery means it will not spill electrolyte. It DOES NOT mean it will not gas.


All lead acid battery’s, Wet Cell ( Maintenance Free or open top ), Gel, AGM or the new Lead Crystal type, can and do gas in the wrong situation.


You are extremely unlikely to have a battery gas while driving, if charging directly from an alternator, because alternators DO NOT cause batteries to gas, unless the battery itself is faulty.


But DC/DC devices, 240vac battery chargers and Solar regulators can and commonly do cause batteries to be overcharged and this causes any type of lead acid battery to gas.

Drive safe is there any studies or independent evidence that good quality Dc to DC chargers such as Red Arc do overcharge without internal failure?

Also if an alternator malfunctions won't it overcharge a battery but potentially at a much higher rate than a broken DC 2 DC would?

Just keen to know both sides of the equation.

Cheers

Hi Scott and an alternators can have a reg fail, causing what is known as a runaway voltage. While this did happen more in older vehicles, this is very VERY rare these days.


Whereas, with DC/DC devices, a number of manufacturers actually state not to run a fridge off any battery being charged by their DC/DC device.


This is because each time the fridge cycles on, there is a small voltage drop, which causes the DC/DC device to “think” the battery is lower than it actually is, but the DC/DC device goes to a full charge state.


This in itself would not be a problem except most DC/DC devices, have a timed duration each time they first go into their full charge ( bulk charge ) state.


A single Bulk Charge cycle is fine for most batteries, but continually applying the Bulk Charge to many batteries, when they are already fully charged, simply over charges them.


With 240vac battery charges, unfortunately it is a common occurrence for them to fail while charging a battery and they simply over charge the battery, and a very well known brand is renown for failing and cooking the battery it is charging.

Thanks mate. Redarc are fine with my fridge running off the AGM while the dc2dc is pushing charge in (25 amp dc but goes up to 40 amp when battery is very low for a short time) so all.good in the hood. Cheers

Hi again Scott and I am not sure why you have fitted a DC/DC device.


There are no Land Rovers that needs a DC/DC device to charge an auxiliary battery


All Land Rovers are capable of charging auxiliary batteries, any number of auxiliary/house batteries, faster than an DC/DC set can do.


Fitting a DC/DC device to any Land Rover actually “chokes” the alternators ability to charge batteries.

I have fitted heavy duty cabling from my cranking battery to an Anderson plug at the rear of the truck, Fused at both ends of course.
I then connect 2x 110AH deep cells and 2x 12v fridges to the Anderson outlet when I am travelling and the alternator has NO problems keeping the batteries topped up AND the fridges running.
When I set up camp I connect the fridges to the batteries and charge the batteries via the Solar panels, This seems to work well for Me.
I only have the fold out Solar Panels and Not a fixed panel on the truck as I prefer to park in the shade But it is not too difficult to set up the fold outs and move them a couple of times a day.

Thanks Tim, I'll have to consider a venting system a change to the battery's location.
Don

I have the same setup as you trout1105, charges 4 batteries though, no issues what so ever.