Charging while towing

[bdosborn]

(slightly off topic)
You piqued my curiosity, and I had to go refresh my memory (you aren't the only one) on the PD series. With the Total Charge Management System, does the PD only charge from A/C or will it charge if hooked to the TV's 12V power? I'd let the PD do the charging. You wouldn't draw 56A for long, just at first. Charging at a constant 40 amps (480 watts) would tend to boil the battery before long. An 800 watt inverter should take care of you.

It works on AC only. Here's a link to the charge profile. I have an older model where the charge wizard was an external dongle. The newer series have the charge wizard built in.

PD Charge Wizard

My solar panel controller has a more aggressive profile as it will charge the batteries to 100% in a day. The PD charge takes a couple of days to bring a battery gently back to 100%. A 90% charge is fast, the last 10% takes forever.

Bruce

[Hal W]

Nicely done and well thought out. One of your pics didn't load (my comp not your upload) where you were talking about shore power but I'm assuming that you have a receptacle you can plug a shore powered extension cord into that makes live your 120V side?

[capnTelescope]

I'm assuming that you have a receptacle you can plug a shore powered extension cord into that makes live your 120V side?

Correct. You can see the inlet in my signature picture below. It's the small thingy below the larger white water fill on the driver side wall back by the galley. Even harder to see is the 12VDC plug-in just aft of the shore power receptacle.

ParkPower 150BBIW.RV 15 Amp Power Inlet, White

[OverTheTopCargoTrailer]

Charging while parked

Screen shot 2015-07-19 at 4.29.13 PM copy.png (135.05 KiB) Viewed 1805 times

[capnTelescope]

Where the campground at?

[haha49]

Gotta agree with Len here. This tends to get way over complicated around here. I don't believe it's all that difficult to disconnect your plug at night or when you stop for an extended period of time. Like he said, travel trailers have done it that way since....well pretty much since forever and it works!
If you like all the fancy dodads and can wire them in then go for it, if not just run a wire, stick in an inline circuit breaker at each end and just 'pull the plug'.

You can wire in a second battery in the tow car and put an isolator on it. Then run a wire from that battery to the trailer now the power is under the hood of the car nothing on the hitch. More then 1 way of doing it and the isolator keeps the car from going dead.

[Thelgord]

I was looking into this, and I think I may have a solution, well for me anyway. My tow rig has the 7-wire plug, one of which is an AUX 12v power supply that is switched on with the key. So I went searching around Amazon, and may have found a solution for less than $25.

Start with a solar charge controller, like this one for $10.99:
https://www.amazon.com/Docooler-Control ... controller

This requires 14-16vDC for input, and after reading through the pages there are a lot of good suggestions, including DC to AC to DC. I wanted a simpler solution, then I found this little gem for $12.99:
https://www.amazon.com/Pawtec-Universal ... ar+charger

It's a universal laptop charger that can output 15V (other voltage options are selectable) @ 90W from a 12V source. So if you are pulling during bad weather, or if you don't have your solar panels out while driving, this could act as a 90W solar system while driving, all for $23.98 (plus shipping if you don't have prime).