flower Posted May 4, 2013 Share Posted May 4, 2013 i am thinking of getting a power pack,possibly a halfords ring professional with 300w inverter.does anyone know if it is possible to plug in a battery charger to it,to top up a leisure battery when not on ehu.hpoe someone can help. (?) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keithl Posted May 5, 2013 Share Posted May 5, 2013 Don't bother! I have just looked at my CTEK 4 A charger and at Max charge it says it draws 1.5 A from the mains. This is approx 360 W so above the rating of the built in inverter. I don't know the capacity of the power pack but don't imagine it will be sufficient to power the charger for anything like long enough to put any meaningful charge back in your battery. Simple answer,,, save your money and run the engine to recharge your battery if you have to. Keith. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lennyhb Posted May 5, 2013 Share Posted May 5, 2013 Just looked at the spec, it only has a 34 amp hour battery allowing for inverter efficency one hours running would take about 28 amp hours so avoing shortening the life of the battery you don't want to run it for more than 30 - 40 mins using full output. So if your charger was charging at say 10 amps you might get 1 - 1.5 hours cf charge jolly expensive way of getting a 10% charge into your battery. If you spend a lot of time off EHU like we do (one night on a EHU in 3 years), first thing to do if you only have one leisure battery is get a second one then consider an 80 or 100 watt solar panel double that if you do winter camping off grid. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flower Posted May 18, 2013 Author Share Posted May 18, 2013 hi keith & lenny, thankyou for your replys. i have thaught of solar panels,but we cannot put one on the roof of the caravan as it is not strong enough. i do not like the idea of leaving free standing panels outside when we go out for the day. so it looks like it will have to be a generator, unless anyone can tell me of anything different flower :-( :-( Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keithl Posted May 18, 2013 Share Posted May 18, 2013 Hi Flower, One option, Buy a second leisure battery and ensure it is fully charged before you go away. Use a good quality charger to make sure it is fully charged, cheap chargers may not fully charge a large battery. I use a CTEK charger and they are very good. Keith. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gocro Posted May 18, 2013 Share Posted May 18, 2013 Flexible solar panels are available and are very light weight, tho' expensive Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lennyhb Posted May 18, 2013 Share Posted May 18, 2013 flower - 2013-05-18 8:23 AM hi keith & lenny, thankyou for your replys. i have thaught of solar panels,but we cannot put one on the roof of the caravan as it is not strong enough. i do not like the idea of leaving free standing panels outside when we go out for the day. so it looks like it will have to be a generator, unless anyone can tell me of anything different flower :-( :-( I take you are referring to a traditional roof construction, aluminium skinning over battens, no problem fix a solar panel to a couple of aluminium rails that are long enough to spread the load over the battens, an 80 watt panel is less than 8 kg. otherwise as Gordon says you could use a flexible panel but they are over twice the price. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Iain Strachan Posted May 18, 2013 Share Posted May 18, 2013 Flower, I'm confused ( yes its easy), but you dont want to leave a free standing, foldup set of solar panels! But your going to leave a generator? Do hope its not left running when your away. Very unsocial. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flower Posted May 19, 2013 Author Share Posted May 19, 2013 i have been told that my caravan has a floating roof and if i put a solar panel on it will invalidate the warranty. i will only use the generator when it is needed and i will always be there when it is being used . it will be put away when i go out. flower. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flower Posted May 19, 2013 Author Share Posted May 19, 2013 i do have a second leisure battery, and it is okay using both batteries for about 10 days, but for longer holidays they are not enough when you are not on electric, that is why i need something to top them up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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