Tow Vehicle charging Lithium Batteries?!

[Daryles]

Thank you Lee.
Here's a followup to our last trip to Ocracoke Island OBX NC.
https://www.montanaowners.com/forums...hlight=charger

This year when we went to Ocracoke Island OBX NC NPS Campground (dry camping for 10 days) the weather was a LOT cooler. Everything got a good workout.
We had to run the furnace at night. The solar panels got the batteries charged back up every day.
The last three days we had clouds and rain. No solar charging. I connected the truck to the rig via the Anderson connectors (you also have to attach a jumper cable from the frame of the rig to frame of the truck when they are not hitched, this provides a ground between them) and ran the DC-DC charger for an hour twice a day for those last three days we were there.
I found out only one of the alternators runs until it reaches more than 80% of the load (200A alternators = about 180A) before the second 200A alternator kicks in. So only one alternator carried the load for the charging. It got to 214⁰F. I plugged in a fan and had it blowing on the alternator to help keep it cool. The other alternator was only 90⁰F.
We also ran out of propane. We had 1 and 1/5 tanks starting out. They do not refill propane tanks on the island. We had to buy a 20lb BBQ grill tank to get us through the last two days.
Like I said, it was an unusually cold spring (March) on the island. No worries, we use it on the Blackstone grill.

[Lee-CI]

Originally Posted by Daryles

Thank you Lee.
Here's a followup to our last trip to Ocracoke Island OBX NC.
https://www.montanaowners.com/forums...hlight=charger

This year when we went to Ocracoke Island OBX NC NPS Campground (dry camping for 10 days) the weather was a LOT cooler. Everything got a good workout.
We had to run the furnace at night. The solar panels got the batteries charged back up every day.
The last three days we had clouds and rain. No solar charging. I connected the truck to the rig via the Anderson connectors (you also have to attach a jumper cable from the frame of the rig to frame of the truck when they are not hitched, this provides a ground between them) and ran the DC-DC charger for an hour twice a day for those last three days we were there.
I found out only one of the alternators runs until it reaches more than 80% of the load (200A alternators = about 180A) before the second 200A alternator kicks in. So only one alternator carried the load for the charging. It got to 214⁰F. I plugged in a fan and had it blowing on the alternator to help keep it cool. The other alternator was only 90⁰F.
We also ran out of propane. We had 1 and 1/5 tanks starting out. They do not refill propane tanks on the island. We had to buy a 20lb BBQ grill tank to get us through the last two days.
Like I said, it was an unusually cold spring (March) on the island. No worries, we use it on the Blackstone grill.

Daryl - you are the one needing thanked. Posts like yours that I linked to take a tremendous amount of brain work, scheming and planning out of certain projects. With the resettable circuit breaker in the TV compartment as well as the one for the Output side of the DC-to-DC charger, I came up with no valid reason for this to not be a safe setup. Looking forward to future upgrades to where we have a Multi-Plus II inverter and a soft start on the rear AC to help cool the coach down during the last hour or so of summer trips next year. Happy wife happy life then when she is doing the inside setup as I set up camp outside.