Camper Battery Charger

if its only really fighting the fridge a 7a charger is ok. my 4 A charger stays infront of my engle.

where the loads on the battery while charging mess up some multistage chargers is when the charger is trying to switch between modes but the load is messing with the test. It'll still fall back an charge the battery but instead of going to say 100% charged you might get to 95% charged.

the final stage of charging a battery is usually done at very low current so what can happen is it will kick over to the low current rate then the fridge comes on and draws out more than the charger is putting in the battery starts to discharge and eventually the charger notices that the final charging didnt work the voltage has dropped so it will redo the test phase and then restart the charging process.

chances are you wont even notice its happening unless your one of those gauge watching anoraks who start to chase faults that dont really exisit when something doesnt look quite rught on the needles

A decent Ctek is $350-400
Projecta will be a little cheaper

So, to try and finish this thread up, I think for my purposes a plain little charger will suffice for those very few times that I'm unable to use solar, and 240V is present - simply to keep the battery charged, which powers the fridge and some LED lights (everything else can run off 240V).

I can't see any other advantage for my situation to use any serious smart charger. The battery in question is constantly connected to solar, which gets enough sun each day when not in use to float the battery. I'm wondering if this one Projecta Pro-Charge Battery Charger - 12 Volt, 2-8 Amp - Supercheap Auto would do the trick?

You mentioned you already own a Ctek.. what size is it?

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Originally Posted by Tombie

You mentioned you already own a Ctek.. what size is it?

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From memory its a 15A, but I'd rather not fix that in the camper, as I tend to use it for other batteries and lend it to family and such. The best place for it in the camper wouldn;t allow easy removal. Now that I think of it, this is why I was interested in a charger with a remote panel, so I could see what was happening with the charger.

Make a cradle for it and wire a couple of Anderson power poles onto it..

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Originally Posted by Tombie

Make a cradle for it and wire a couple of Anderson power poles onto it..

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So, just to confirm, if I was to use my Ctek MXS15, it would work fine charging a battery that is also under load, i.e. the "smart charging" wouldn't get confused?

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Originally Posted by Ranga

Whilst I'm sure the Pronautic is a very good unit, I can't really justify the price. My usage would be lucky to be once a year, so I'm looking for the cheapest option a the moment. Typically we're without a 240V power source, and rely on solar or the alternator via a Traxide isolator for our power. Most common use would be for rare occasions in a caravan park combined with not enough solar power.



Any entry-level recommendations?

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I gave away the pronautic that I purchased from drivesafe.......no wonder it went so quick when I offered it up, I forgot what it was worth.

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Originally Posted by Ranga

So, just to confirm, if I was to use my Ctek MXS15, it would work fine charging a battery that is also under load, i.e. the "smart charging" wouldn't get confused?

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Not at all....

MXS15 is enough to crank 15A continuous duty.

I've had one for over 10 years and it's seen some pretty unorthodox 'power supply' situations and not once been a problem switching modes on me.

the 'supply' mode is for when you don't have a battery, or your battery is SO dead that it needs full current supply. If you ever get to this stage with a battery it's probably got a dead cell.

Just plug it in, hook the leads up to the battery and leave it there. You don't need to do any remote monitoring. The charger has enough brains to know what to do all by itself.