Quote:
Originally Posted by jdoe71
At the risk of prolonging the beating of a dead horse, you're suggesting that a 15 amp battery charger is sufficient for a 225 AH battery bank? Three hours minimum of run time to put 45 amps into it? That doesn't make much sense to me. Plus that charger is a freakin' portable unit, I wouldn't want that banging around on my boat.
If the guy wants to buy a Honda gen and 55 amp IOTA then what's the problem, it's his bucks. If he goes to a bigger battery bank, he's already set up for it. And we all know that as often as not you end up going bigger, never seen anybody go smaller.
There's overkill and there's also underkill, and I think what you're suggesting is the latter. Overkill may be wasting money if you ignore the fact that good equipment will likely last longer, but underkill most definitely is wasting money because cheap stuff dies young from overwork.
I'm puttin' my money in solar and wind, but if I was going to buy a small gen, I'd buy the Honda. I am buying the IOTA as well, a 55 amp for a 460 amp bank, at $210 plus $35 for the IQ4, it's a bargain.
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Go right ahead and spend the money if it pleases you. The point is that spending that amount certainly isn't 'required' to charge 2 T-105's. It's rather telling that one poster gave an actual use scenario of his setup, which included running the 2000i all night to
power a
water heater and
cabin oil heater. So what's the sense of having a generator/charger that can charge a battery bank in 1 hr if the
generator is going to be running all night long anyways?...or at least several hours every evening to
power a TV and other
appliances?
Yes, that one charger was 'portable', but generators have to be moved out on the
deck anyways so what's the big deal moving the charger too? (You'll notice that the 2nd charger I linked to was the 20A 'onboard' mounted variety).
The only horse being beaten here is the one many folks apparently like to ride on while spending the big bucks on over-spec'd
equipment that they may or may not 'grow into' (more than likely it breaks or they sell the
boat before that happens though) rather than on what they actually need to do the job at the time.
'Good equipment' only 'lasts longer' when it isn't stolen, immersed or doused with water, and/or plugged into the wrong voltage
shore power, to name just a few of the mishaps likely to happen to expensive
electrical equipment on boats.
FYI, thieves are even stealing
solar panels from land-based installations these days, so hanging a rack of expensive
solar panels on a boat is like hanging a 'loot me' sign on your boat. Unless you plan on watching your boat 24/7/365 or paying someone to watch it for you, going
solar to me means going 'stealth solar' with foldable or flexible
panels that can be deployed and then tucked out of sight when the boat is unoccupied. Hey!, there's someplace that you could spend the extra money/big bucks ....i.e. flexible solar
panels..... where spending the extra money actually makes sense. But let me guess...most just go with the regular rigid solar panels mounted on
Bimini frames. LOL!