One or Two Battery Banks? (plus a bonus RV converter/charger question)

I’ve a couple questions (maybe a few, depend on how you look at it) that I’m hoping to get some polite answers/suggestions for.

We live in a dilapidated RV which came with an Inteli Power 9100 PD9130 converter/charger. Should I be worried about it over charging our battery bank? Is there a better, yet affordable, option I should be considering (bear in mind that we do live in a dilapidated RV, and not by choice)?

We have eight Interstate 6 volt deep cycle batteries (all the same type and age), four of which are connected in parallel and in series. I was going to enlarge our bank to include the other four, but had been told it would be better to make a separate bank with the remaining four. The reasoning was that our small 130 watt portable solar kit* would never charge it completely, thus reducing the battery life span. We do have a generator running a couple hours several times every day, to charge our laptops, and while doing so, also charges the house batteries; I’m not sure that was taken into account with their reasoning.

*We are going to upgrade to a ‘real’ solar panel system someday, if I live long enough, but for now I need to take care of what we have.

Combining all eight batteries into one battery bank is fairly straightforward. But if I’d be better off with two separate banks, would I need two converter/chargers (both powered by one generator, or solar set-up)?

Does the PD9130 have the Wizard control accessory? This will make a huge difference in controlling the voltage and keeping the batteries at their best.

Although it appears to be discontinued for these old converters so may not be available to add.

time2roll said:

Does the PD9130 have the Wizard control accessory?

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No idea what that is. What we have is screwed to the floor hidden under a cabinet. I doubt they ever planned on anyone even looking at it.

Yes so the 9130 is just a fixed voltage converter that will provide 13.6 volts to the battery. The batteries are being chronically under charged. Need a new converter. These 6v golf batteries really need 14.4 to 14.8 volts to charge properly.

That is a lot of battery. I recommend the PowerMax series for better charging at best price.

https://powermaxconverters.com/product/pm4-series-2/

60 to 80 amps rated would be best unless your generator is less than 2500 watts. Wire size could be a concern to connect same as the existing and could limit you to maybe the 35-45 amp. Depends on how well you know the electric system including wire size and fuse rating. Could go all the way to 120 amps but would require some modifications.

The multistage charging will make a huge difference when running the generator.

The solar helps and still it is a bit small to really make a difference on the battery configuration. I would make one monster battery.

I have a Westinghouse iGen4200 (3500 watts) generator. The cable is approximately 15 ft of #6 AWG welding wire from the bus in the RV to the battery bank. The wire from the charger to the bus can be any size I need.

If you are inclined to use the existing #6 the 80 amp is probably the max. If 120 amp is used would need #4 minimum and #2 wire is better but #4 might be the largest that fits the terminals. Check with Powermax. that would put 30 amps into each pair and is well within the normal charging. If upgrading the converter I would definitely have all tied together.

Could mount the new converter close to the batteries and connect direct with heavy wire and use the converter cord to plug directly into the generator. This would bypass the long #6 that is probably hard to replace. The existing 9130 could just remain in place.

The most I can afford is their 60 amp. I'd prefer to keep the new charger in the RV, so couldn't I simply replace the PD9130 with the PM4?

Mr. Kingsbury said:

The most I can afford is their 60 amp. I'd prefer to keep the new charger in the RV, so couldn't I simply replace the PD9130 with the PM4?

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Yes with #6 wire it should be a direct replacement. Will be a huge improvement.