Posted 2007-10-22 3:22 PM (#69778) Subject: trickle charger or inverter??
Member
Posts: 15
Location: Texas
Which do I need? My trailer lights (living quarters) work only with the battery. I want to be able to plug my trailer in to electricity and use that instead of my battery. Anybody have any suggestions?
Posted 2007-10-22 7:51 PM (#69807 - in reply to #69778) Subject: RE: trickle charger or inverter??
Extreme Veteran
Posts: 383 Location: Texas
Does your trailer have a charger for the battery built in? If so it'll charge faster than you can use power most likely. I'm just trying to figure out why you don't want to pull power from the battery.
Posted 2007-10-22 8:56 PM (#69821 - in reply to #69778) Subject: RE: trickle charger or inverter??
Elite Veteran
Posts: 792 Location: East Tennessee, USA, Planet Earth
Originally written by milo on 2007-10-22 3:22 PM
Which do I need? My trailer lights (living quarters) work only with the battery. I want to be able to plug my trailer in to electricity and use that instead of my battery. Anybody have any suggestions?
I am by far...not a pro here. But I would think that if your LQ is not wired to run on land power, you would need to wire it for that. Have you contacted your trailer dealer to ask about this?Now...if you LQ is wired and you just want to run it on a generator, then you need a converter. The converter allows the current wiring in you LQ to work while the gen is running.Now...an invertor is what you need to run..say an electric toaster off the battery powered outlet in your LQ. i hope this all made sense.
Posted 2007-10-22 9:28 PM (#69826 - in reply to #69825) Subject: RE: trickle charger or inverter??
Elite Veteran
Posts: 792 Location: East Tennessee, USA, Planet Earth
Originally written by milo on 2007-10-22 9:20 PM
Thanks for the info!
You are welcome! I just got my RV this spring and had to learn all about inverters and converters. It can be very confusing! If you need anything else, give a holler.
Posted 2007-10-22 10:01 PM (#69827 - in reply to #69817) Subject: RE: trickle charger or inverter??
Regular
Posts: 97 Location: Kansas
I am considering adding a converter/charger to my unit. The lights in my trailer.. like yours..only run off of DC current. If I understand correctly what I have been studying.. a converter/charger will covert your DC lights to be used with AC when plugged in (thus saving your battery power). The charger will trickle charge your batteries when plugged in to AC or shore power, land power.. etc. Here is a link to some info that I thought was helpful http://www.rversonline.org/ArtTipsConverter.html. I am still trying to figure out what size I need. I have a 30 amp box in my LQ. Does that mean I need a 30 amp converter/charger? I have two deep cell batteries as well.
Posted 2007-10-23 9:28 AM (#69848 - in reply to #69778) Subject: RE: trickle charger or inverter??
Extreme Veteran
Posts: 383 Location: Texas
You need a converter/charger.... it changes ac to dc and charges the battery. As far as I know the power (dc power) still comes from the battery for all the lights etc. but it's also being charged when you're plugged into a power supply so it doesn't matter. You could also get away with a good quality battery charger like what you use to charge car and truck batteries but you need to make sure it won't overcharge your batteries. I have one of these on my trailer and it works very well. http://www.progressivedyn.com/rv_products.html
Posted 2007-10-23 9:48 AM (#69850 - in reply to #69778) Subject: RE: trickle charger or inverter??
Regular
Posts: 51 Location: Grundy Center, IA
I'm in the process of putting in a weekender package in our trailer. I will have the lights, water pump, radio, etc. on 12V, and I'm installing a charger/ converter. The better quality converters will have 3-stage charging so that they won't boil the battery. Another nice feature of some converters is that they have a built-in breaker box for both the 110 items as well as the 12 volt items. There are many converters available on ebay to help you decide which is right for you. Another good source of information is bestconverters.com. There's quite a bit of information at that site.
trickle charger or inverter??
Give folks time to reply.
I just got my RV this spring and had to learn all about inverters and converters. It can be very confusing! If you need anything else, give a holler. 