Honda EU2000 Largest Charger

[phiggins]

Hi,

I know this has probably been asked before but after searching 20 pages in the archives I still don't have a clear answer.

My battery bank is about 400ah wetcell. I want to buy a Honda EU2000 to charge the batteries. My charger is currently a Xantrex TrueCharge 40. My Link 20 indicates that if I have discharged the batteries by 50%, 200ah, it only charges them at a maximum of 37amps so it take over 5.4 hours to recharge them.

The Honda EU200 in theory could sustain a charge rate of 16a on the 120V side or 140 amps at 14v on the output of the charger without tripping so if I had a 100amp charger I could charge the batteries in 2 hours. But on one thread I found someone said that wetcell batteries need at least 5 hours to recharge properly, True?

Be interested to hear from anyone who has 2000w genset. What size/kind charger do you have and how fast can you recharge the batteries?

Thanks Paul

[Vasco]

I have a Honda EU2000i, a Link 2000 and a Zantrex Freedom 2000 inverter/charger. This charger can put out 100 amps. I cruise six months a year and do not go in marinas. I have a KISS wind generator but when the wind fails I use the Honda. Having only a 400 amp house bank I put the Honda on if it's down 150 amps. The charger will put out 100 amps initially but will cut back as the voltage rises. The last 15% takes much too long to put back so I don't. At anchor my batteries are usually down 15% at least unless I get a good stretch where it's blowing. Then they get topped right up. If I have to run the Honda I usually run it an hour to 1 1/2 hours.

A friend a few years ago complained that his fridge had died. On checking it was his batteries that were too low. He had a Honda but only had a 20 amp charger!! Ran the Honda an hour or two every day but obviously at a maximum rate of 20 amps wasn't putting much back into the batteries. Moral of the story, when using the Honda you want the biggest charger it'll run.

[Morgan Paul]

I have a Honda 2000, it runs nice and starts easy.
I have 2 100 amp batteries. I charge them using two 20 amp smart chargers I bought at Home Depot. I isolate the 2 batteries one charger on each battery.

Vasco has the best setup for the Honda 2000.
100 amp charger and a 400 amp battery bank so he is pushing everthing to the safe max.
25% charging rate is it.

[wind rose ll]

I have 400 amp hour house batteries and 40 amp xantrex charger it takes me about 4 hrs to top up from 50% discharge with my Honda 2000.
Dave

[Vasco]

Dave,

Do the math. It's going to take you a lot longer than 4 hours. Even if your charger put out its max for four hours (4x40=160) which, by the way it will not do as it will cut back considerably as the battery voltage increases. 50% of your bank is 200 amps. I've found that it will take 2 or 3 hours just to get the last 15% into the batteries, not an efficient use of the Honda so I just stop the charging at this point.

[hellosailor]

Paul, it is not that wet cells need five hours but that they generally cannot be recharged at a rate faster than 20% of their capacity, i.e. a 100AH cell generally needs to be recharged for five hours at 20Amps (plus another 15% for charging losses) and trying to charge it faster generally will only result in boiling off electrolyte.

That's a rule of thumb and good chargers and cool temperatures, etc., might allow you to beat it. That's also based on a full discharge, and hopefully you will only be discharging to the 50% point, making the time 2-1/2 hours instead of five to restore the half charge. (Closer to three counting the extra time for the charging inefficiencies and losses.)

The limiting factor with anything is going to be the electrolyte boiling, once that happens you're just abusing the batteries. If the charger is using pulsed DC, instead of pure DC, a bit less boiling happens so they can charge faster. And, a microprocessor controlled charger that varies both voltage and amperage to provide "just enough" voltage rather than "the most" will also cause less boiling. That's the logic some MPPT controllers use in solar charging systems. Don't know what the Honda uses, but I suspect "old fashioned simple" is how they do it.

[ZolaSail]

I have a Yamaha 1000 generator and a 30-amp charger. I have a house bank of +/-350 AH and a separate starting battery. I have a spare 10-amp charge on board. Would I be better off combining the starting battery with the house bank and charging off the 30-amp charger or keeping them separate and using the 10-amp on the starting battery. The generator can run both chargers at once I believe. Why is it that you can’t use two charges on a single battery bank at once? (I am sure this is a stupid questions but I have never heard the answer) Sorry for the thread high jack.

Thanks

[hellosailor]

"Why is it that you can’t use two charges on a single battery bank at once?"
You can, and you can also have two wives and live in perfect harmony. But like the two wives, the two battery chargers may have different idea about reality and contradict each other, and make your life hell. The "smarter" each charger is, the more likely you'll get hell.

[wind rose ll]

Your right Rick...my generator runs for 4 hours then runs out of gas..at that point l have about a 90% charge...good enough for a few days at anchor.
Dave

[phiggins]

Thanks for the responses. That is what I wanted to hear. Sounds like a charger like the Freedom 2000 would do the trick. But I would like to find one with a smaller footprint as I have nowhere to put a charger/inverter that big. Also, I already have a 1500W inverter that works well so I only need the charger.

Paul

[akio.kanemoto]

Originally Posted by Vasco

I have a Honda EU2000i, a Link 2000 and a Zantrex Freedom 2000 inverter/charger. This charger can put out 100 amps. I cruise six months a year and do not go in marinas. I have a KISS wind generator but when the wind fails I use the Honda. Having only a 400 amp house bank I put the Honda on if it's down 150 amps. The charger will put out 100 amps initially but will cut back as the voltage rises. The last 15% takes much too long to put back so I don't. At anchor my batteries are usually down 15% at least unless I get a good stretch where it's blowing. Then they get topped right up. If I have to run the Honda I usually run it an hour to 1 1/2 hours.

A friend a few years ago complained that his fridge had died. On checking it was his batteries that were too low. He had a Honda but only had a 20 amp charger!! Ran the Honda an hour or two every day but obviously at a maximum rate of 20 amps wasn't putting much back into the batteries. Moral of the story, when using the Honda you want the biggest charger it'll run.

Howdy,

Just a quick question on this - I'm assuming that your charger/inverter is actually the "Xantrex Freedom Marine 20"? I couldn't find the "Freedom 2000" model.

So on this note - it's a 2000W/100A charger - now just out of curiosity - do you know what the power factor is? I'm thinking of going down the same route with the Honda+Charger option - but can't find the power factor stated for the Freedom 20 anywhere, so am wondering whether it will actually work (just worried that the insides of the "Freedom Marine 20" is not the same as your "Freedom 2000"). Again, I'm thinking of using the Honda EU2000i with this.

(I did see on some of Xantrex's other products that they have "Power Factor Corrected Charging" (PFC), but not on this range... it would really suck if they've removed the PFC bit from the model range... or if the models/insides are indeed different)

Anybody know the answer?

Thank you and Happy New Year!

[sv_makai]

Originally Posted by Vasco

I have a Honda EU2000i, a Link 2000 and a Zantrex Freedom 2000 inverter/charger. This charger can put out 100 amps. I cruise six months a year and do not go in marinas. I have a KISS wind generator but when the wind fails I use the Honda. Having only a 400 amp house bank I put the Honda on if it's down 150 amps. The charger will put out 100 amps initially but will cut back as the voltage rises. The last 15% takes much too long to put back so I don't. At anchor my batteries are usually down 15% at least unless I get a good stretch where it's blowing. Then they get topped right up. If I have to run the Honda I usually run it an hour to 1 1/2 hours.

A friend a few years ago complained that his fridge had died. On checking it was his batteries that were too low. He had a Honda but only had a 20 amp charger!! Ran the Honda an hour or two every day but obviously at a maximum rate of 20 amps wasn't putting much back into the batteries. Moral of the story, when using the Honda you want the biggest charger it'll run.

Wow Vasco. When I read your comment I had thought I already commented here. Makai also has (had) the Freedom 20 with the link 2000 and for a while we used the honda 2000 generator and a kiss wind gen.

The most output we ever got with our 680 amp bank was 78 amps charger output. I had to go into the charger setup and adjust the max charging points as it would trip the honda generator breaker when it left to the charger max setting.

We rarely ever ran the gen for more than 1 1/2 -2 hours to bring the banks back up if we had poor sun and or no wind. Using the eco mode extended the fuel consumption and cut the noise of an already quiet machine as the gen slowed down to match the draw from the charger.

I agree go with the biggest but as we found do not waste money on one greater than the gen will handle as the gen will never be able to put out enough for the charger.

[donradcliffe]

The Xantrex charger power factors really suck with normal gensets, but the i in 2000i means Honda uses an inverter to make the AC, which apparently gets around the power factor issue. Vasco is not the only one I have heard of successfully using the Xantrex Freedom inverter/chargers with a Honda generator. You can always use the remote on the Xantrex inverter/charger to reduce the charging rate to match the genset.

[akio.kanemoto]

Originally Posted by donradcliffe

The Xantrex charger power factors really suck with normal gensets, but the i in 2000i means Honda uses an inverter to make the AC, which apparently gets around the power factor issue. Vasco is not the only one I have heard of successfully using the Xantrex Freedom inverter/chargers with a Honda generator. You can always use the remote on the Xantrex inverter/charger to reduce the charging rate to match the genset.

Thanks for that - however, I haven't bought the Xantrex yet (I bought the Honda though...) so I'm looking for something that I will get the max amps out of instead of trying to throttle it back.. so if the Freedom 20 will give me my 100A (subject to battery acceptance etc etc...), then that sounds great.

Since I'm not so hot with this technology, can you provide some more info on the "i" and how it helps the power factor issue?

[akio.kanemoto]

Originally Posted by sv_makai

Wow Vasco. When I read your comment I had thought I already commented here. Makai also has (had) the Freedom 20 with the link 2000 and for a while we used the honda 2000 generator and a kiss wind gen.

The most output we ever got with our 680 amp bank was 78 amps charger output. I had to go into the charger setup and adjust the max charging points as it would trip the honda generator breaker when it left to the charger max setting.

We rarely ever ran the gen for more than 1 1/2 -2 hours to bring the banks back up if we had poor sun and or no wind. Using the eco mode extended the fuel consumption and cut the noise of an already quiet machine as the gen slowed down to match the draw from the charger.

I agree go with the biggest but as we found do not waste money on one greater than the gen will handle as the gen will never be able to put out enough for the charger.

Just for clarity - your generator is the new Honda EU20i or the older model?