GENERATORS & CHARGERS

J

John_Hampton

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Oxfordshire, UK
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Has anyone first hand experience of running switch-mode (Sterling) type battery chargers from small generators. I have a small 600 Watt (Clarkes) generator siimilar to the old Honda 'Suitcase' generators. I am told that it will not run a battery charger of any size (I believe because of the inductance of the charger transformer), this is a pity as I have a large conventional charger (24V @ 25A). If anyone has experience of running Sterling chargers from these small generators at say upto 50A @ 12V or 25A @ 24V I would greatly appreciate it hearing about it.
 
I would be very wary of using a switch-mode charger from a 'domestic style' generator due to spikes/voltage stability/uncertain waveform. The risk to the charger seems a bit high to me.
On the other hand, an old fashioned conventional battery charger (transformer/rectifier) won't come to any harm and should work fine. Just make sure you watch the charge voltage in this case due to the uncertain generator output.
 
I routinely charge my batteries with a Honda generator, via a Victron charger, as I did it before via a "camping car type" charger. Of course, none of them is "digital". And of course, the power delivered by the Honda is far from "clean". IMHO, the power delivered by most marinas is pretty "dirty" as well.
Thus any "marine grade" charger should be able to cope.

Feedback welcome.

Paul
 
Thanks for posts. I have spoken to Sterling and they cannot recommend running more than a 12Volt 10Amp charger (120 Watts) from this (600 Watt) generator. So will have to re-think method of charging 1000Ah @ 24Volts of batteries in my electricall propelled boat. I was hoping to buy a second generator so that I could run 2 off 24V 25A chargers.
 
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