Reverse Polarity Light Glows Dimly

[Dsanduril]

Crash course.

Amps don't mean anything without knowing Volts. When you're talking battery charging and chargers you need to separate the Amps going into the batteries (at nominally 12 Volts DC) from the Amps being used by the charger (at nominally 120 Volts AC).

The battery charger you linked to puts out 1.25A @ 12 Volts DC (nominal). That's not enough to do anything other than keep the batteries topped up and prevent self-discharge if they are already fully charged. See the link from the website below, for a battery of any size it indicates their "chargers" are for "maintenance only".

http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/image...163277405_.pdf

The Freedom, on the other hand, is intended to charge your batteries when they are deeply drained. If you use it in power sharing mode then not as quickly as full-out, but at least far more than 1.25A. In power sharing mode the Freedom uses 5A @ 120 Volts AC (again, nominal). If the Freedom was 100% efficient at taking your AC from the generator and converting it to DC for your batteries you would be able to get 50A @ 12 Volts DC. (And how we get there takes way more than a crash course).

That's all theory. First, your generator probably puts out a little less than 120V AC. Then, your batteries probably need a little more than 12 Volts to charge (like 13.8-14.4). Then there is resistance everywhere, and finally, your Freedom isn't 100% efficient, but more like 80-90% efficient. All in, your Freedom (set for 5A) should be delivering something like 35-40A into 12 Volt DC batteries (assuming they are in a state of significant discharge).

In your posts several back said the AC voltage from the generator was dropping to 80 Volts? That sounds like you have too much load on the generator, even with the Freedom set for 5A. I would recommend turning off every other AC load on the boat. Make sure that includes the fans, the water heater, everything. Leave on only the Freedom. If that all works then you can add other devices one at a time and see what brings up the load and trips the breaker. I'm suspecting a heater of some sort, but not knowing any of the details of your setup it's a shot in the dark.

Maybe you could post your battery sizes and a list of your AC devices?

[jboats]

Ok this is making a little more sense knowing that I'm exceeding the abilities of my gear is a little easier to make sense out of. I'm definitey overloading the generator but I also tripped the breaker with all other systems shut down while just charging. The charge got up to just over 12 and then I think the charger tried to go into a higher charge mode or whatever and overloaded tripping the breaker again. Anyway I got a guy coming out this week to go over it with me, he seems to think that something like the water heater alone shouldn't be tripping me up. If I'm not going to be able to fully charge my bats with the honda I sorta wished I had just bought one of those $200 China jobs.

2 Lifeline GPL 4DL's 210 amp hours each, these bats are somewhere between 6-11 years old and and still seem to function pretty good.
Freedom 20 invertor/charger combi
Seaward water heater 1500watt
Lots of 120V AC outlets all over the boat with various chargers plugged in for small electronics.
Small microwave, not even trying to use it on the genny yet.
Reefer - I'd have to look up the specs but its your standard boat reefer

Standard distribution panel with tons of switches, I can turn off all the AC outlets... for testing, Isolate the banks and the started battery is on a seperate switch and has a trickle solar panel charger on it.

I also have a couple movable 45 watt solar panels I keep below and use to keep the reefer from draining my bats too much during the day when on the hook. I wired them in with there own controller on a long 20' cable that allows me to move them from the bimini top to the fore deck depending on conditions.

Thanks for the crash course!

Originally Posted by Dsanduril

Crash course.
....
In your posts several back said the AC voltage from the generator was dropping to 80 Volts? That sounds like you have too much load on the generator, even with the Freedom set for 5A. I would recommend turning off every other AC load on the boat. Make sure that includes the fans, the water heater, everything. Leave on only the Freedom. If that all works then you can add other devices one at a time and see what brings up the load and trips the breaker. I'm suspecting a heater of some sort, but not knowing any of the details of your setup it's a shot in the dark.

Maybe you could post your battery sizes and a list of your AC devices?

[Pete7]

We used to run a 40 amp hour battery charger and the 1kw (UK - 240v) water heater off our Honda 20i without any problems. The battery charger on its own used the Honda in tortoise mode, didn't need the extra umph until something with a heavy load was plugged in.

Pete

[Stu Jackson]

Crash course:

12V INTO a battery will NOT charge it. battery charging requires a voltage HIGHER than 12V, that's why the 12V outputs of the Honda generators are useless in charging batteries. That's also why the other output of the Hondas do actually work!

If you're "Electrically Challenged" then you would do well to do some, dare I say, research and "homework" (I know, I know, it's Sunday and all that, but...)

Battery charging: http://www.amplepower.com/primer/primer.pdf

Google is your friend. I just typed in "boat electrical" and found hundreds of hits. Here's one: http://www.marinco.com/files/media/g...r%27sGuide.pdf