Components on while charging?

luthj

Engineer In Residence
The honda is an inverter gen, with very good designed electronics. The 120V output on those Honda gens is very clean, and you should have no worries about it causing damage. The only units that might be of concern are REALLY cheap crap (harbor freight, cough cough).
 

shade

Well-known member
The honda is an inverter gen, with very good designed electronics. The 120V output on those Honda gens is very clean, and you should have no worries about it causing damage. The only units that might be of concern are REALLY cheap crap (harbor freight, cough cough).

Yep, and the dinosaur boat anchors roaming flea markets around the world, like what @pugslyyy described.

The gensets I used at the army were old-school, you had to adjust the frequency manually after you started them - but we just used them to power a 400Hz inverter that all the sensitive electronics ran off of.

Since we have a world traveler in our midst, I was wondering what kind of mains power quality you've experienced, @luthj. With your van's battery capacity, I doubt you had to plug into anything else while you were living in it, but what about during B&B time?
 

67cj5

Man On a Mission
No it won't be a problem for you because you are using the Battery as a Buffer, and as already stated the Honda's are a very clean supply, What I was talking about is powering the fridge Directly from the 120-240v outlet of the generator, Honda are very safe generators but it is still not a thing I would risk doing regardless of the brand of generator, It is a bad habit to get in to and I value my fridge too much to risk ruining it,
 

shade

Well-known member
No it won't be a problem for you because you are using the Battery as a Buffer, and as already stated the Honda's are a very clean supply, What I was talking about is powering the fridge Directly from the 120-240v outlet of the generator, Honda are very safe generators but it is still not a thing I would risk doing regardless of the brand of generator, It is a bad habit to get in to and I value my fridge too much to risk ruining it,
Nothing wrong with running in belt & suspenders mode.

If you have a good idea of the run time you can get out of a tank of gas for a given load, set a timer so you can perform a proper shutdown of everything. There are also simple external tank systems that can be added to a generator, but using one also means it's possible that no one will be around to check for other problems that can develop during long hours of running.
 

luthj

Engineer In Residence
Since we have a world traveler in our midst, I was wondering what kind of mains power quality you've experienced, @luthj. With your van's battery capacity, I doubt you had to plug into anything else while you were living in it, but what about during B&B time?

In mexico and central america power quality was a crapshoot. The real problem was badly wired local distribution, but that's another thread. I have tested outlets and found 55-62hz (north america). Voltages from 85 to 137VAC approximately.

To solve the need to plug in, I rigged up an interesting design. Two laptop power bricks wired in series, connected to my solar MPPT controller. Its a poor mans 10A smart charger. It also protects my van from power surges, as the units are isolated internally by a transformer.

527451
 

67cj5

Man On a Mission
Nothing wrong with running in belt & suspenders mode.

If you have a good idea of the run time you can get out of a tank of gas for a given load, set a timer so you can perform a proper shutdown of everything. There are also simple external tank systems that can be added to a generator, but using one also means it's possible that no one will be around to check for other problems that can develop during long hours of running.
Yeah this is why I am thinking about running 2 banks of 2 x 115Ah batteries because while I am charging one bank I can use the other,

I have the 15 Ah Noco and the 26 Ah Noco but if I am running short on time in order to charge them then My normal Workshop charger will be a lot faster because these smart chargers take for ever to charge just one 115Ah that has only 40 to 50% left in the Tank. These Noco's are great if you have time on your hands but there is no way will the 15Ah Noco will charge one of these batteries powered from a Generator using One tank of Gas,
 

Winterpeg

Active member
This will be the first year I'll be using the generator extensively. My solar just doesn't keep up completely.... but will be the constant source of power input. I'll be using my fridge/freezer as a freezer exclusively this time and it will require more power as we'll be offgrid for 3 weeks or so.

The gen will be for topping up the batteries and running when I need to charge devices (battery pack for USB fan, phones, etc).
 

shade

Well-known member
Yeah this is why I am thinking about running 2 banks of 2 x 115Ah batteries because while I am charging one bank I can use the other,

I have the 15 Ah Noco and the 26 Ah Noco but if I am running short on time in order to charge them then My normal Workshop charger will be a lot faster because these smart chargers take for ever to charge just one 115Ah that has only 40 to 50% left in the Tank. These Noco's are great if you have time on your hands but there is no way will the 15Ah Noco will charge one of these batteries powered from a Generator using One tank of Gas,

You may want to start a new thread detailing your current setup and ask for suggestions to improve charging times. It appears that there's room for improvement, at least during the bulk charging phase.
 

TommyArgh

Member
It goes to my Noco Genius dual bank battery charger (2.5amp per bank) that charges my 2 deep cycle batteries.... which powers my ARB fridge.

So is it better to charge an AGM Deep Cycle with a lower amperage for longer time as opposed to say a Noco 10amp charger in shorter amount of time?
 

dwh

Tail-End Charlie
So is it better to charge an AGM Deep Cycle with a lower amperage for longer time as opposed to say a Noco 10amp charger in shorter amount of time?

Generally, no. Most AGMs need a bit of a high-amp kick in the butt to stir up the chemistry.

And 10a ain't "high amp". More like, "bare minimum".
 

Winterpeg

Active member
527885


I'm no expert... I've generally always thought slower was better though.... a quick google search turned this up.
 

67cj5

Man On a Mission
Noco chargers are not fast not even remotely, Using the 26Amp Noco on a 115 Amp Battery Vs a 10Amp standard type charger and the Standard Charger will Blitz the 26A Noco,

How do I know this ? because I own the Noco G3500 / 3.5A charger and the G15000 / 15Amp Charger and the G26000 / 26Amp Charger, All three of them are very slow indeed

IE, I hooked up the G15000 to the 115A/h battery to charge it and it took 8 and a half hours to get to 90% where the Main Green Light was flashing and by time it had finished doing what it had to do once the Green light came On fully the charger sat there clicking away equalizing the battery and by time it had finished over 39 hours had gone by,

I spoke to Noco and I got a heap of Techno babble which was totally BS, As I have 3 new batteries and on each battery the results were the same, Anyway I don't know how they can claim that they are twice as fast on a 100/120 Ah battery claiming it takes 3.8 hours to charge a Deep cycle Lead Acid Battery Because the quickest I have seen the Green LED light up fully is 6 and a half hour, and my Big Normal charger on the 9Amp setting will charge the same battery in 3h 30m up to 4h 37m.

The only thing Noco chargers are good for is leaving batteries permanently on charge along with being able to charge many different battery technologies, I just don't see a real world purpose for Noco Chargers apart for leaving a battery on charge forever. I fell for their BS and it has cost me about $600 bucks to know the truth. I hate liars and conmen.
 

dwh

Tail-End Charlie

He's using a Lifeline for that test, which does say bulk to 14.4v and absorb at 14.4v (@70 degrees F) in their manual.

My Chinese AGMs say right on the case, 14.6v-14.8v bulk/absorb. Going to a higher voltage would alter his test results significantly.

Also the ".2C vs. .4C" is kinda goofy anyway, since those charge rates only apply in the beginning before the CAR starts to drop...which is why he only got a 12min difference over a 5.5hr charge cycle.

Again, going to a higher voltage would have had a bigger impact on charge time. A better comparison than .2C vs. .4C would have been 14.4v vs. 14.7v.
 

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