Battery to Battery Charger

[DBA Forum (B) - Colin Stone]

My generator battery has suffered through not being charged sufficiently during several winters.
So with its replacement, I was thinking of battery to battery charging over the winter.
Options:

Cheapo 1 - Connect it to half the engine 24v battery and change round every couple of months. Both batteries are same chemistry. Engine battery is maintained by solar.

Cheapo 2 - Get a dedicated Maplin 12v solar panel for the gen battery.

Not Cheapo - Get the pucker battery to battery charger.

I know that C1 is frowned upon, but if it is just to maintain a float voltage, does it really matter and would it affect the engine battery?

Colin Stone
KEI
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[DBA Forum (B) - Chris Green]

Post by DBA Forum (B) - Colin Stone
My generator battery has suffered through not being charged sufficiently during several winters.
So with its replacement, I was thinking of battery to battery charging over the winter.
Cheapo 1 - Connect it to half the engine 24v battery and change round every
couple of months. Both batteries are same chemistry. Engine battery is
maintained by solar.
Cheapo 2 - Get a dedicated Maplin 12v solar panel for the gen battery.
Not Cheapo - Get the pucker battery to battery charger.
I know that C1 is frowned upon, but if it is just to maintain a float voltage,
does it really matter and would it affect the engine battery?

Simple (but quite efficient, i.e 90% or better) step-up voltage
converters are now very cheap, you can get them for £3 - £4. You can
then use a cheap PWM battery charger to charge your 'secondary'
battery from the main battery.

[DBA Forum (B) - Paul Hayes]

Hi Colin

I have used a 24v - 12v battery (from engine start batteries) to battery charger (Stirling) for the past ten years.

The 12v battery feeds lighting, VHF radio, 2 "car" radios, and generator start, plus a couple of 12v instruments and phone chargers.

It gives a 4 stage charge regime, I do not have a main engine 12v alternator, so when on the move the engine start alternator does the job. Genny running, genny alternator charges the 12v battery directly. Nothing running a small 24v solar panel keeps the engine (and 12v) topped up.

Hope this helps

Paul

PS The first battery (cheap) I had lasted six years with this set up

[DBA Forum (B) - Geert-Jan Smolders]

Cheapo option 1 will become expensive quickly, unless you rotate the batteries extremely often and always in the same state of charge.

If half a 24V bank is different from the other half, one of them will always be overcharged and the other undercharged. Charge / deplete current is always the same for both of them so any mismatch will become problematic. Even low loads add up quickly.

Have seen this setup in various ways of ingenuity and it always ended up with a cooked and a dead battery.


What is a pucker battery? Even google didn't know.

[DBA Forum (B) - Pete Milne]

I agree with Geert about the battery and option 1. It'll work - for a while. Cheapo 2 should be OK.

'pukka' = real, proper, etc, brought back to England from India.

Pete

[DBA Forum (B) - Colin Stone]

Post by DBA Forum (B) - Colin Stone
pucker

Genuine, real deal etc.

Colin Stone
KEI
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[DBA Forum (B) - Colin Stone]

Sorry - 'pukka' rather than my misspelling.

CS

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