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Old 06-26-2018, 04:53 PM   #11
gmtech16450yz
Senior Member
 
Brand: Thor Motor Coach
Model: Vegas 27.7
State: California
Posts: 289
THOR #10907
Here, you want some battery charging/draw/voltage/amperage info?...

.




hahaha.


So here's a couple tidbits that might help all of you guys-

The first one is don't assume the 55 amp WFCO converter puts out 55 amps. Actually, don't assume ANY charger is going to put out it's max rating for very long in the charging process. That rating is the max and with my having one and having an ammeter on it I can tell you it's only going to come close to 40-45 amps if the batteries are totally dead. And even then, it's only going to put out that 40-45 amps for a couple minutes. If you only have a voltmeter and all you can see is the battery charging voltage, once it drops from charging at 14.xx to 13.xx, you're probably only putting 10 or 15 amps into those batteries. It's gonna take HOURS to charge at that rate.

On the subject of the stock WFCO converter, it's also not that great on voltage control. I NEVER saw mine go to the 13.1v float voltage, it pretty much stays at 13.6v 90% of the time. I replaced mine with a 100 amp PowerMax converter and it actually charges properly, going from full boost charge rate of 14.6v to 13.6v, then down to 13.1v for long term maintenance. It will also pump out some amperage! I've already seen 80-90 amps out of that converter after running the coach batteries down.

The other is charge time on shore or generator power, which will usually be identical btw. With the stock 55 amp converter, you're going to have to run the generator at least a couple, more like 4-5 hours to get the (average size/somewhat depleted on charge) coach batteries back up to 90%. Again, this is because it doesn't really put out that much amperage/voltage in the boost phase, and doesn't stay in that phase very long. If my coach batteries are almost fully dead, I can get them up to 90% or so now with the 100 amp converter/charger by running the generator for about an hour. That's the biggest reason I replaced the stock converter, so I can quickly get the batteries back up when needed. I would say the 100 amp PowerMax converter resulted in more than doubling the charging speed, which means less than half the time needed to run the generator.

The last point is that using battery voltage to determine the level of battery supply amp hours in this situation isn't that accurate. Having just been charging and then shutting off charger will raise the battery voltage for awhile, having any load on the system will lower the voltage, battery temps and of course accuracy of the voltmeter itself are also factors. So saying the voltage is xx.xx so that means my batteries are at xx% isn't really possible. You can get an idea, but it's not exact by any means.

Hope that helps. Here's the link to the charger/converter I put in my Vegas...

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1
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