New you beaut VSR

[shonky]

HI, all.

May have mentioned on a past post that our start battery was less than helpful after a couple of weeks parked up, and carrying a 35kg AGM battery by hand to jump start the donk was not the ideal solution.
Not being willing to install a Redarc thingy as our average milage was not enough to charge the cellphone I finally spotted a VSR on evilbay which answers all a sluggard's dreams. While it has all the properties of the Redarc, it differs in that when parked any charge to the house battery also goes to the one up front. Brilliant! After an hour or so under the bus with a pair of ratcheting crimpers,several meters of twin core 6 B&S cable, a couple of 100w fuses ( not featured in the blurb on Evilbay? ) and the trusty heatshrink everywhere possible it all worked beautifully. Gives one a raging thirst, mind you.

[Craig]

Val sells these ones.

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/12V-DUAL-BAT ... 4acbc2cb94

and the price looks pretty good. Which one did you buy Shonky?

[SteveW]

I have an Enerdrive VSR on the toad (use a deep cycle in that when the beer/wine fridge is in there) and a Redarc in the Motorhome. The Redarc does work both ways but you have to connect the blue wire in with a momentary push button - works fine when the house batteries are above 12.8. I find that with the solar panel functioning while the MH is parked up, the vehicle and house batteries never separate - overnight, cloudy days, etc., don't cause the house voltage to drop enough. Free camping is a different matter and in that case, the VSR does exactly what it is meant to. Plug in the extra folding solar panel or the generator and all three batteries are charging once I press the "blue" button - all five if I connect the toad to the MH. Under this circumstance I have 5 batteries, 3 solar charge controllers, and 2 VSR's in the mix. Why 3 solar charge controllers you ask? Well the house controller connected to the roof solar panel (120w) was too inconveniently placed to double up the folding panel (180w). So I have a second controller wired in the other side of the house batteries into which I plug the folding panel. Then I have another controller wired into the toad so that I can use the folding panel connected to the toad deep cycle battery when the toad is not attached to the MH. The toad deep cycle and the toad vehicle battery are separated by the Enerdrive VSR which, of course, works in both directions. The toad battery, being neither large nor deep cycle, does not stay linked to the house battery for long when the fridge is running - if the solar (or a 12v charger) is not connected.

[shonky]

Hi, all.

Craig - yes we bought the Enerdrive as well and it's a great item.

BTW we're looking at adding a $80 40amp charger as in adverse weather the genset takes quite a while to bring depleted batteries back up. Anyone know if they're suitable for AGM's?

[Craig]

I think T1 uses an $80 three stage charger and is happy with it.

[bob r]

hi shonky I use the 40 amp one and the 20 amp one, they work well.
bob

[John M]

HI, all.

May have mentioned on a past post that our start battery was less than helpful after a couple of weeks parked up, and carrying a 35kg AGM battery by hand to jump start the donk was not the ideal solution.
Not being willing to install a Redarc thingy as our average milage was not enough to charge the cellphone I finally spotted a VSR on evilbay which answers all a sluggard's dreams. While it has all the properties of the Redarc, it differs in that when parked any charge to the house battery also goes to the one up front. Brilliant! After an hour or so under the bus with a pair of ratcheting crimpers,several meters of twin core 6 B&S cable, a couple of 100w fuses ( not featured in the blurb on Evilbay? ) and the trusty heatshrink everywhere possible it all worked beautifully. Gives one a raging thirst, mind you.

You can buy a 50w solar panel and a cheap regulator for not much more and then just forget about your start batteries. I have 24v engine batteries, and use two 50w panels, I got cheap, run them through a ($10) eBay special pwm regulator and regardless of the weather batteries are always 100% charged no matter how long we park up.

[Keith Morris]

I think T1 uses an $80 three stage charger and is happy with it.

"tanks" here---
I had a 20 amp 3 stage charger and on T1's advice I went up to a 40 amp 3 stage unit. No complaints - fast postage from bit_deals on the eBay.
I now run the generator for half the time to do the same amount of charging. The cost of petrol for the generator on my around Australia trip over 6 months paid for the 40 amp unit. I tossed out the flimsy battery clips and wired the charger direct to the battery post thing (Zantec) that displays the current in/out etc. Works fine for me and thanks to T1 Terry. Mr. Val on AMH Forum sells a lot of good stuff at reasonable prices. His Shop listing gives a good description of his products.
Keith.