I have had the the Arkpak 730 for several years now, and it has never charged correctly in the Vehicle. I think this is mostly due to Toyota smart alternators voltage fluctations. In my 5th gen 4runner it almost never charges and in my 3rd gen Tacoma I ran 10awg wire to the bed and it charges sometimes. When the Alternator voltage drops below 13.4V the Arkpak quits charging. I was looking at installing a Buck Boost Converter to stabilize the voltage at 13.8V, so that Arkpak wont go in and out of charge modes. Something like this
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07WFMG11F/ref=ox_sc_saved_title_1?smid=A3GYM455B71YGR&psc=1. What do you guys think?
Hi MSAND1977
when charging the Ark Pak via the DC to DC car charger i have some questions they are below.
1- are your charging and discharging at the same time ?
2- are you just charging the Ark pak and have nothing plugged in taking power from it ?
i do not recommend your course of action the Ark pak DC to DC car charging is only as good as the electrical system it is plugged into.
(not blaming the jeep its a process of elimination to understand who-what, when, where and why)
i would strongly recommend you check the voltage coming out of the cig socket without anything plugged into to as long as it above 12 volts the DC to DC car charger will work and operate to spec.
a fix i strongly recommend is upgrading the electrical wire to a thicker gauge to combat voltage loss over say the 6 meters, standard sockets are either 2mm or 3mm thick cable i would strongly suggest to increase this to a minimum of 6mm or 8mm this will help reduce voltage drop over the 6 metres plug you using, i would also fuse it at 10 amps.
also just a note the DC to Dc car charging can produce up to 120 watts but this will only ever happen when the battery is at or very close to 0% which is 10.8 volts as a rule of thumbs if volts are low your amps are high as the battery is hungry for a charge up, but if your volts are already high say 12.6 volts or more the battery is not has hungry for the amps as the voltage is already high.
i look forward to your reply on the above two questions.
if you have any additional information to supply please do
look forward to being part of the solution.
Regards
Brett from Ark