DC-DC charger- which one?

Good advice on this thread. From my limited experience I'd say if your D4 is running properly you should not need a DC-DC charger in the vehicle, as others have said. Sounds lke your smart alternator is saving power and not charging so get the software update Drivesafe mentioned. Our Defender makes 14 volts all the time while the engine is running. It has a Traxide dual battery system fitted.
Where a DC-DC could be useful is in your camper to bump up the charge to the trailer battery while attached to the operating vehicle after the current has travelled all the way down through the trailer plug.
When I researched them the Matsons were much cheaper than the others and do a similar job. They were recommended on a caravan site. They can be either able or not able to take direct solar. That didn't worry me as I already had solar plugged directly into the trailer Anderson plug. Ours bumps the charge to 20 amps and the AGM is happy with it.
Hope that helps.


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I brought my D3 with a 40A DC/DC charger setup already installed. While it does an ok job of keeping the aux battery charged, I plan on replacing it with a traxide unit - one day when I have some free coin to do it or sooner if the charger hurrys up and ****s itself

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Originally Posted by DiscoMick

Where a DC-DC could be useful is in your camper to bump up the charge to the trailer battery while attached to the operating vehicle after the current has travelled all the way down through the trailer plug.

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Oddly, even then it's not necessary.

Thats what i thought. If the current has dropped at that point how is a device that is at the same point in the line getting enough current to provide more.

Oh I forget, thats part of the dc/dc magic is it?

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Originally Posted by Mick_Marsh

Oddly, even then it's not necessary.

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I have this setup in the camper for when we are travelling, it's left over from when we had an Explorer with no dual battery system, I left it in place waiting for it to die after we changed vehicles(D2)

Now we have the D4 I can hook up the anderson plug we have in the rear from our Traxide setup, when we got the D4, I installed the USI-160 that incorperates charging the battery in the camper, as well as the winch and 3rd battery option.

It was only on when the ignition is on, something we needed when we had the Ford, although it works OK, charging via our solar panel works better, and in most cases I will bring it out to fully charge the battery in the camper, also if it's dark, I will set up a 240v charger via an inverter connected to the Auxillary battery, as it also works better, I then turn that on before going to bed.

Only problem this thing won't die, I've shorted it out, got it wet, accidently dropped things on it, it's a bloody tough little thing.

Baz.

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Originally Posted by clubagreenie

Thats what i thought. If the current has dropped at that point how is a device that is at the same point in the line getting enough current to provide more.

Oh I forget, thats part of the dc/dc magic is it?

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No magic to provide 13.8 volts at 20 amps they draw 30 amps from the wiring at the camper end :)

THATS why it takes longer. It has to wait for the camper to charge from the altbto supply the 30 amp to the converter to push the 20amps back.

Most people who support DC DC chargers just ignore or are not aware of how inefficient they are;)

I actually fell very sorry for people who get sucked in to buying DC/DC devices.

I mean that in a genuine way.

They have been fed a truck load of horse do-do, convincing them that they need one of these "wonder" devices or they will end up damaging their batteries.

The reality is that these Wonder devices have only been around for a very short time but RVers have been successfully charging their auxiliary and house batteries for many decades, using nothing more than their alternator.

There are VERY FEW vehicles that actually benefit from these wonder devices but when you read all the B/S advertising, you would think people have never been able to charge their batteries until these wonder devices came along.

The Advertising B/S does not match reality.

There are now so many people, who while on a trip, for one reason or another, have had to remove their DC/DC device, initially for just a short time, till they could repair or replace it, only to find their batteries were being fully charge just as well and in many cases, even better than when they were being charged with one of these wonder devices, and so they never use them again.

There are just a couple of vehicles where a DC/DC device is needed, and as posted earlier in this thread, one is/was the Ford Ranger but Ford now has a fix for their low voltage operations.

Land Rovers have never needed this crap to be able to fully charge any number of auxiliary and/or house batteries, they are just not necessary.

The biggest single selling point for these wonder devices is not the alleged benefits they are supposed to offer, it is the profit margins the sellers get, over what they would get if selling other types of DBS.

And thats it in a nut shell.


Now back to the OP. He has a problem somewhere in his system, and once that is sorted, he will have the BEST dual battery system available for a Land Rover.

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Originally Posted by drivesafe

The biggest single selling point for these wonder devices is the profit margins the sellers get, over other types of DBS.

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I know where you are coming from with that statement. When I went digging into my D3 to find out what sort of duel battery system was in place when I brought it I promptly done a quick google search for the unit. I was surprised to find just the DC/DC charger itself was retailing for over $700! I'll probably keep it however once its done its job in the D3 as a solar regulator as it can apparently do that as well. That's if I ever get solar panels.........