WearyWanderer
New Member
Long-time lurker, first-time poster. I'm running into an issue with my battery system in my travel trailer, and I was hoping that y'all might have some insight.
I'm running into an issue with very slow charging of the 500Ah of LFP batteries in my travel trailer, and I have hunch of where the problem may lie.
On the DC side of my travel trailer, I have 2 x 250Ah 12v Chins self-heating/ Bluetooth LFP packs wired with a couple feet of 4 AWG pure copper cable (great crimps on the lugs, I can assure you!) to distribution bus bars (a 60-amp DC breaker between between the battery and the bus bar for each battery). Then, from the bus bars is a long run (20ft on the negative side and about 30ft on the positive side as it runs to a battery disconnect switch) of 6ga copper wire that the camper came with from the factory. At the end of that is the WFCO panel that my travel trailer came with along with a "converter" unit that charges the batteries.
The problem that I'm running into is, despite putting in a 55-amp PowerMax PM4 converter (output adjusted to 14.6v), the batteries are only receiving right in the neighborhood of 40 amps combined while charging (as indicated by the BMSs inside the batteries, not by a clamp meter). Thinking that perhaps the PowerMax was less-efficient than I thought it was, I stepped up to a 75-amp PM4, but I'm still getting a charge current right around 40 amps. I should note that the PM4 is set to constant voltage output rather than charging mode (I watch my batteries very carefully during charging), and I shut off the converter when the batteries are full.
How can I get that charging current stepped up to be closer to the output of the converter? I spend most of my year fully off-grid in my travel trailer (why do I even own a house anymore?), and I use my Honda EU2200i to juice things up every few days. With the lower charging current, I have to run my generator much longer to get those batteries charged. I was hoping to charge my LFP cells at a fast enough rate that they complete charging around the same time as my Bluetti power station, but with the slower rate of ~40 amps, the Chins take such a long time to get fully charged.
My thinking is that the problem might be the long run of 6 AWG that the camper came with from the factory. I was tossing around the idea of stepping up to either 4ga or 2ga, but I'd like to get some opinions before redoing the main run.
I'm running into an issue with very slow charging of the 500Ah of LFP batteries in my travel trailer, and I have hunch of where the problem may lie.
On the DC side of my travel trailer, I have 2 x 250Ah 12v Chins self-heating/ Bluetooth LFP packs wired with a couple feet of 4 AWG pure copper cable (great crimps on the lugs, I can assure you!) to distribution bus bars (a 60-amp DC breaker between between the battery and the bus bar for each battery). Then, from the bus bars is a long run (20ft on the negative side and about 30ft on the positive side as it runs to a battery disconnect switch) of 6ga copper wire that the camper came with from the factory. At the end of that is the WFCO panel that my travel trailer came with along with a "converter" unit that charges the batteries.
The problem that I'm running into is, despite putting in a 55-amp PowerMax PM4 converter (output adjusted to 14.6v), the batteries are only receiving right in the neighborhood of 40 amps combined while charging (as indicated by the BMSs inside the batteries, not by a clamp meter). Thinking that perhaps the PowerMax was less-efficient than I thought it was, I stepped up to a 75-amp PM4, but I'm still getting a charge current right around 40 amps. I should note that the PM4 is set to constant voltage output rather than charging mode (I watch my batteries very carefully during charging), and I shut off the converter when the batteries are full.
How can I get that charging current stepped up to be closer to the output of the converter? I spend most of my year fully off-grid in my travel trailer (why do I even own a house anymore?), and I use my Honda EU2200i to juice things up every few days. With the lower charging current, I have to run my generator much longer to get those batteries charged. I was hoping to charge my LFP cells at a fast enough rate that they complete charging around the same time as my Bluetti power station, but with the slower rate of ~40 amps, the Chins take such a long time to get fully charged.
My thinking is that the problem might be the long run of 6 AWG that the camper came with from the factory. I was tossing around the idea of stepping up to either 4ga or 2ga, but I'd like to get some opinions before redoing the main run.