[Archived]

Jon wrote: “Even if you have been driving all day when you plug into shore power the inverters will go to bulk charge because driving does not fully charge house batteries.”

I suspect that not all Prevost conversion owners completely understand what Jon is says here. A few of you (some? many? most?) are like I was until I fully understood what Jon has said and why that was.

The alternators on most (probably all?) of our Detroit Diesel engines do not produce enough voltage to bring the house batteries up to full charge. There’s no magic potion, there is likely no adjustment that can be safely made to the voltage regulator (don’t even try), no special trick. The alternator will flat out NOT bring the house batteries to a full charge.

After I had read Jon state that two or three times over the years, I started to watch the voltages on our house batteries. First in the morning after being on 50amp shore power all night long. Then at the end of a long day of running from Point A to Point B. Sure as feces in the barn yard … at the end of the day the the house battery voltage was lower at the end of the long travel than they were in the morning as I unplugged shore power.

So, this is what I started to do …

if we were dry camping after running on the highway (race track, highway rest area, Walmart, etc.) I would run the generator for a couple of hours prior to say 10pm to fully charge the house batteries for the night before we went to bed for the night. That way the house batteries were likely to stay charged through the night rather than the generator auto-starting at 3am to 5am in the morning.

[Bill]

Thank you all for your input, guidance and answers.

My inverters are Freedom 25 and at first glance without digging into the manuals it does not appear there is any way at the inverter or at the Crestron Controller panel to adjust to lower input amps. I do have a 50amp combiner adapter with plenty of 30amp extension cords so hoping I can find a second 30a receptacle on an opposite leg so I can come up with the shore power I need. I do plan on just running the generator and manage the loads at night if I get busted for running the generator otherwise I’ll just run it the entire time.

I have not learned from this chain of conversation about the lack of a full charge off the Detroit alternator. I had not noticed that before but always had 50 amp shore power upon arrival.

Cheers all,