February 27, 2006 20:05
But here are a couple of things you want to look at.
How many amp-hours are your batteries rated for? You don't state their size. Are they deep cycle? Ie a Group 27 deep cycle battery is rated at about 100 amp hours.
If you add up the usage of your on-board devices you can see how many hours you can run them all without recharging. However, deep-cycle batteries don't want to be drawn down more than about half their ratings. It's hard on them.
As far as what you have, I'd be upgrading to a good quality, hard-wired battery charger that's 3 phase. It should be rated to charge your batteries up in a reasonable amount of time, maybe around 40 amps. Too small a charger is also hard on the batteries, most portables are around 12-20 amps.
You can add another battery to one of yours in series and double the capacity, but they should be the same size.
With running a refrigerator, I'd recommend no less than 2 Group 27's in series for your A or house bank, plus another starting battery on the B side. I would add an isolator between the banks and maybe an amp-hour meter for convenience.
I'd just use a plug-in inverter, you don't need a big one for your Mac.
Jack
How many amp-hours are your batteries rated for? You don't state their size. Are they deep cycle? Ie a Group 27 deep cycle battery is rated at about 100 amp hours.
If you add up the usage of your on-board devices you can see how many hours you can run them all without recharging. However, deep-cycle batteries don't want to be drawn down more than about half their ratings. It's hard on them.
As far as what you have, I'd be upgrading to a good quality, hard-wired battery charger that's 3 phase. It should be rated to charge your batteries up in a reasonable amount of time, maybe around 40 amps. Too small a charger is also hard on the batteries, most portables are around 12-20 amps.
You can add another battery to one of yours in series and double the capacity, but they should be the same size.
With running a refrigerator, I'd recommend no less than 2 Group 27's in series for your A or house bank, plus another starting battery on the B side. I would add an isolator between the banks and maybe an amp-hour meter for convenience.
I'd just use a plug-in inverter, you don't need a big one for your Mac.
Jack