Components on while charging?

TommyArgh

Member
I havent really found an answer to this, is it okay to leave electronics connected to the battery while the battery is being charged? Im recently starting to dabble in staying off the grid a little longer with an X2 AGM Battery. The battery's main component is a 95qt fridge set at moderate temps. That battery is charged with either a NOCO Gen1 for shore power or a Renogy 100w panel. Can this fridge continue to be plugged in and running in either charging mode?
 

jacobconroy

Hillbilly of Leisure
I don't know anything about solar, but I have a NOCO 10A in my Jeep and leave it plugged in 24/7 in my driveway when not camping to maintain my batteries. The National Luna fridge is running all the time too.

Hasn't seemed to cause any problems yet. If this is a bad thing to do...I'd also like to know. ;)
 

Buliwyf

Viking with a Hammer
Sure. Especially if it's a big battery, and a little charger. Just don't ever accidentally disconnect the battery and run on the charger alone.

Some chargers can add harmonics to the system that'll cause some thing to act up. Battery should soak up most of that. Then your invertor adds more harmonics, and by the time it gets to your Dewalt drill charger.......it won't work. So don't freak if weird combo's of chargers or electronics cause some weird stuff somewhere.

I had to get a DC to DC invertor to isolate my laptop from the noise of my radio and other chargers. Truck is 12v, my laptop is 19.5v DC IIRC.
 

luthj

Engineer In Residence
Any voltage that damages electronics would damage a battery. It is possible to pull a 60lb old school dumb charger out, and connect to to a tiny battery. Those can reach 18V as they are unregulated.

Most any modern charger won't exceed 15V when charging, maybe 16V if it has a equalize feature (usually manual).

So there is no issue leaving stuff plugged in. Almost all electronics designed to be connected to a 12V automotive system will tolerate ~10.5-16V.
 

Photobug

Well-known member
Do you have an PWM or MPPT controller for your solar panel? If so both your NOCO charger and solar panel would be putting out voltages safe for any 12V electronics.
 

Photobug

Well-known member
Sure. Especially if it's a big battery, and a little charger. Just don't ever accidentally disconnect the battery and run on the charger alone.

Some chargers can add harmonics to the system that'll cause some thing to act up. Battery should soak up most of that. Then your invertor adds more harmonics, and by the time it gets to your Dewalt drill charger.......it won't work. So don't freak if weird combo's of chargers or electronics cause some weird stuff somewhere.

I had to get a DC to DC invertor to isolate my laptop from the noise of my radio and other chargers. Truck is 12v, my laptop is 19.5v DC IIRC.

What kind of radios are you talking about, Shortwave? Do you have a pure sine inverter and still not able to use your dewalt charger with it while using a battery charger?
 

dwh

Tail-End Charlie
Voltage wise you're fine. But if the loads draw more amps than the chargers can supply, the battery state of charge will go down instead of up.
 

jonyjoe101

Adventurer
with lead acid (agm) its ok to leave devices connected, lead acid always takes a charge. But never do it with lithium, I learned the hard way. PWM/MPPT controllers can produce voltages above 24 volts when they encounter a 12 volt battery they can't charge, they try to force a charge into the battery. It will destroy all 12 volt devices connected to the lithium battery.

But if you have sensitive devices that can't tolerate any voltages above 14 volts get a 12 volt voltage stabilizer or connect to the load out of the charge controller which have overvoltage protection.
 

luthj

Engineer In Residence
When using a lithium battery with BMS that can cause a sudden disconnect, you can use a small lead acid battery as a buffer.

If the lithium BMS is disconnecting to protect the battery, that means your charger is not set up properly. Cheap chargers are not a good choice for expensive lithium batteries.
 

67cj5

Man On a Mission
You can run all your gear while the battery is charging because as someone already said the battery will act as a buffer In just the same way it does when you plug something in to a Cigar lighter socket, The One thing you must never do is run your Fridge directly from a Petrol/Gas powered generator, Because when they are about to run out they rev up and send a voltage spike straight in to your fridge,

If you are using a generator to charge your batteries via it's built in charger you can still run everything including your fridge as long as everything is connected to the battery first, and you can also run everything if they are connected to the Battery first "and you are using a Proper Battery charger that is being powered by the generator, But Never power your fridge via the 12v supply or the 110-240v supply on the generator because if it Revs up it will kill your fridge, It might be ok if you have done it a few times But Doing this is the biggest Killer with 4x4 fridges, "ALL" Power to a Fridge ( MUST ) come via Battery with 12v power or by using a 12v powered 110-240v Inverter.

Using your gear while charging is the same as using your gear when you are using solar panels to top up your batteries,

Hope that helps.
 
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shade

Well-known member
The One thing you must never do is run your Fridge directly from a Petrol/Gas powered generator, Because when they are about to run out they rev up and send a voltage spike straight in to your fridge

I don't think that applies to the regulated 120VAC output from something like a Honda EU2200i.
 

67cj5

Man On a Mission
I don't think that applies to the regulated 120VAC output from something like a Honda EU2200i.

Well I know enough people who have burnt out their fridges doing it, Regardless of the brand of generator, The voltage will and does spike as they run out of fuel, and no matter if the AVR is switched on or not they will cause Damage and if the fridge is actually running at the time the generator runs out of fuel the risk is even higher

Don't take my word for it, Drain the fuel out of your generator and start it up and Plug your fridge in to it directly in to the 110-240 outlet and see how many times it takes with running out of fuel before it kills your fridge, Honda or NOT they will Kill it sooner or Later.

99.9% of Generators are regulated but they all still do it.
 
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shade

Well-known member
Well I know enough people who have burnt out their fridges doing it, Regardless of the brand of generator, The voltage will and does spike as they run out of fuel, and no matter if the AVR is switched on or not they will cause Damage and if the fridge is actually running at the time the generator runs out of fuel the risk is even higher

Don't take my word for it, Drain the fuel out of your generator and start it up and Plug your fridge in to it directly in to the 110-240 outlet and see how many times it takes with running out of fuel before it kills your fridge, Honda or NOT they will Kill it sooner or Later.

99.9% of Generators are regulated but they all still do it.
99.9% of generators are definitely not regulated. What you describe could be a problem with unregulated (or poorly regulated) generators.

I've never had a problem with this occurring with my Honda EU2000i generator. There is no switch for the automatic voltage regulation; if it's running, it's regulated 120VAC. It also regulates the engine rpm according to load while maintaining regulation, so an rpm surge isn't an issue. I've run a window AC unit with my generator until it ran out of fuel with no ill effects. Honda, Yamaha, and others are able to charge as much as they do for their inverter generators because they don't behave the same as their "equal" from Harbor Freight.
 

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