OK, so I'm stuck in
Florida for thew summer because of the virus. I'd normally go up to Chicago.
We'd love to do a couple weeklong cruises on the SW coast. We've done many of these, but this would be the first time in the summer.
Also, we much prefer to be at
anchor.
Gear: I have a 400Ah
Lifepo4 setup with
Victron Multiplus 3000w-100A
charger.
I have 400 watts of
solar running through
Victron mmpt controller.
Most nights at
anchor, the sea breeze is fine. But in the case of rain or scorching heat, the boss would like an A/C plan.
I have a Flagship
Marine 16kBtu A/C unit that will run off the
battery bank (I've been testing for a few days). I also keep a
Honda 2000 watt portable
generator on the rail as well as a spare 2000w Chinese knock off.
Here's the rub: I hate hate hate running the
generator, and I absolutely refuse to run it at night. I think it's generally just inconsiderate of other cruisers.
Now, I've been testing the A/C at the
dock running on the
battery. To simulate a sleeping situation, I close all vents except for the ones in the sleeping
cabin. My thermostat also has a
remote temp
sensor that I installed in the sleeping
cabin.
Using this method, I can keep the cabin very comfortable (75 degrees f) with outside being about 87 and 90% humidity. Because I have the
remote temp
sensor and a large A/C, the duty cycle is only 20% (10 minutes on and about 40 min off). The A/C draws about 140 amps. So 140*0.2*8 hours= 224 Ah for an overnight on the anchor running A/C.
That's a lot. But possible.
Now comes my question. I'll have to run the portable generator the next morning to make up that
power. Even at a reasonable hour (11am, say), I still hate running the generator and would like to minimize the time. But the Victron
charger can only put in 100 amps at once. Even if I had a zillion watt generator it wouldn't matter.
But...if I got a second charger, like the Progressive Dynamics 60 amps
lithium designed charger that Battleborn and Will Prowse recommend, I could start up the OTHER generator as well and hook it up to that charger while the Victron charges from the
Honda. So 2 generators and 2 chargers for a lot less
charging time. And 2 generators isn't that much louder than one.
Running 2 chargers at once at least in the heavy bulk phase of
charging seems like no problem to me (after all, that's what having 2
solar controllers does).
Does anyone think this is insane? I only plan on doing it once in a while, as generally I'm fine with the sea breeze, etc. But in case of heat and rain it might be nice to have the A/C option.
Thanks!