Number of Batteries

[RTBussiere1]

OK I have a question for anyone willing to answer. I am looking at purchasing a 24fbs. I know they have a tray for 2 batteries. There seems to be room to Modify the Tray to have room for say 4 Batteries. Will the TT Charging system be able to charge 4 batteries? The reason for 4 batteries I am planning on putting in a Power inverter to run the TV and other small electric items when I have to turn off the Generator.

[rick danger]

I'll be interested in the answer to this. I was going to ask the same question.

[Flyrotor]

Yes, your system should be able to charge all 4 batteries, depending on the voltage drain, it may take a longer amount of time to achieve a full charge

[Seann45]

It will handle any amount of batteries.. but as flyrotor said it will take longer to charge..
The sun is my battery charger and has worked well for the last 7 years..

[Siamese]

If you're considering having four batteries, I will assume you plan to spend some time off the grid.

Will your present converter/charger be able to handle four batteries? Yes.

The other question you should be asking is whether the stock charger is really up to the task to efficiently charge even one battery. If it's the stock, WFCO converter that Jayco uses, the answer may be no. The WFCO chargers are notorious for failing to go into bulk mode, and as a result, take MUCH longer to charge the batteries. Highly recommend you do some net searching (including this site) to learn about the WFCO bulk mode deficiency and the popular replacement unit from Progressive Dynamics.

If you'll be off the grid, and then immediately returning to an AC power hookup where recharge time is of no concern, then you'll be fine with the WFCO. If, however, you plan to stay out beyond your batteries' capacity and want to recharge with a portable generator, the recharge times will simply be too long with the WFCO.

Don't know if you've researched your replacement batteries yet, but would also suggest two pair of golf car 6v batteries running in series/parallel to create a true, deep charge battery bank putting out 12V.

[rbreding]

For reference we upgraded from a single 12v to dual 6v 230ah GC batts. I knew already that the stock WFCO wouldn't be up to par as it took forever to charge the factory 12v battery. When changing out the batteries I upgraded the battery cables and the system to a PD4060. Charging happens much faster and I have plenty of amperage to push into those batteries.


SO to wrap up, as the others have said sure it will work but it may take 24 hours to charge 4 6v batteries on that WFCO.....probably longer. Do it correctly the first time.

[RetiredOne]

Originally Posted by Siamese

Don't know if you've researched your replacement batteries yet, but would also suggest two pair of golf car 6v batteries running in series/parallel to create a true, deep charge battery bank putting out 12V.

Not sure if you noticed, but this thread was from almost 4-1/2 years ago.

[RoyBraddy]

When I got my 2008 OFF-ROAD POPUPP trailer camper I installed 4ea 12V Interstates on the tongue and wired in two 4-way switches on them... This way I could one or all four at same time and had a quick disconnect for all batteries when needed...

Things went well for about two month and then I noticed one of my batteries had boiled out its fluids and had to be removed....

Then I find that my trailer had a single mode charger and always put out 13.6VDC. If this was left plugged into shore power at the house it would boil out the battery fluids...

I looked into changing my simple converter and power distribution panels and ended up getting a WFCO 8900 series power distribution panel which gave me eight 120VAC circuit breaker zone and my one 30AMP Master breaker on the AC side and eleven 12VDC Fused positions plus two REVERSE POLARITY fuses... Was not hard to wire in as all of the wiring was already located in the near vicinity of the old distribution panel...

Then after getting all of this going I found the WFCO would never go into its smart charging modes and only would again just produce 13.6VDC applied to all the batteries.

Then I swapped out the WFCO WF8945 Converter/charger for a Progressive Dynamics PD9260C 60AMP charger setup... This went into smart mode first thing every time... My remaining 12VDC batteries lasted until 2014 where they finally stopped holding their charge state.


Roy's image

I have done a lot of camping off grid with three remaining batteries and when out off road I have it planed out what all I can run off the batteries and not deplete more than 50% charge state which is around 12.0VDC before 8AM each morning when I a allowed to run my 2KW Generator to recharge them back up to their 90% charge state. This takes around 3 hours or so of generator run time... As long as I kept a close watch on the three batteries charge state I would not do any harm to them. I could do the 50% to 90% charge states 12 times or so before I had to do a full 100% charge state which would take around 12-14 hours to complete. I did this when I got back home as running my generator that long was not all that feasible when off grid...

I am just now getting back into camping again after everything sitting in my back yard for a few years. The new battery bank is going to be two sets of 6V GC2 batteries in series. I will be installing these in a TORKLIFT slide of lid battery box and this will fit the rails on my trailer tongue just fine. My PD9260C Batter chargers so far charges this setup just fine. It does take a little longer than three hours however - more like 4 hours... The GC2 batteries I think want to start out with 14.8VDC verses the 14.4VDC I have... The batteries start tapering down rather quickly when being charged...


Google image...

My drains are the usual 1-2AMPS DC for monitors and the like all the time plus from lets say 4Pm to 11PM I may be use 20-25AMPS DC Drain running the lights at night and home entertainment items as well as some of my Ham Radio items.. This will do just fine staying inside my 50% charge state until the next morning where I can run my 2KW generator again for a few hours during breakfast and get back up to the 90% charge state. I will not start some night camping unless my batteries are at least at their 90% charge state. Otherwise it will get dark on me around 9PM when I have to turn everything OFF when the batteries drop down to the 12.0VDC charge state. I don't want to harm the batteries.

This is what I have been doing for several years at any rate... SO I know what to expect...

Its all in the planning haha...

Roy Ken