Honda EU2200i onboard

[smac999]

Originally Posted by Adelie

5hr at 25A is 125Ahr.

.

not when the house load is 5-10a. that is 15a of charging left. a huge waste of time, noise, and fuel.

[Adelie]

Originally Posted by smac999

not when the house load is 5-10a. that is 15a of charging left. a huge waste of time, noise, and fuel.

You make a good, point, I hadn't thought of house loads during charging.

On the other hand there is an easier and cheaper way for Dingo to decrease generator run time than to get a bigger charger. Charge for 60-90min in the AM. That is when the batteries will be at their lowest and can accept the most amps. With 60-90min on the generator the batteries will probably be well into acceptance charging and will have rapidly decreasing amps the batteries can accept. At that point the panels can probably put out enough for house loads plus whatever the batteries are willing to accept. In the evening run the generator for another 30min while the rice cooker is going and at the same time charge things like phones and other limited duration draws.

They have an EU1000 so they wouldn't be able to supply an 80A charger anyway. At the 900W continuous rating they would be able to put out 64A at 14.2v. Given the nature of those generators, even though relatively quiet at full throttle, they are still significantly quieter running 1/2 throttle or below. At 500W that means they can put out 35A.

They could upgrade to a bigger charger and generator. A 80A charger on Amazon is somewhere around $800 depending on quality. An Eu2200i is $1050. With taxes and shipping figure somewhere close to $2k. They can pay for fuel for a decade at least for that much money.

They could buy a bigger charger. Let's say a 65A for somewhere around $500. That's still a bunch of years of fuel.

Just changing times and length of charging may cut their charging time in half or better without buying anything.

[Adelie]

Originally Posted by zemurray

....
How do I know what I’m pulling out, what I’m putting back in at what rate and what my SOC is? Simple, I monitor it. Charging your batteries to 90% periodically is not going to substantially reduce your battery life. Once you get back to a shore charger, it will be 100%.

I’m not really interested in a debate about it. I shared my experience on real data. Take it or leave it.

My question was in the vein of how do you monitor it?
Is there a readout on your charger that says what percentage charge your batteries are at?
Are you using a Balmar SmartMonitor?
Are you measuring specific gravities of the battery cells?
Are you monitoring voltage?
Are you using a shunt to count amps in and out?
Are you counting hours of absorption charging?