How To Charge Truck Camper's Battery From Truck Engine's Charge Circuit

Question:

I have a pop-top truck camper mounted in the bed of my F150. It has two 6Volt 225AH AGM batteries. I have a generator available but don't always want to use it to recharge my batteries when I am traveling. How can I use the trucks engine to recharge?

asked by: Darrell S

Expert Reply:

We have the perfect solution, I highly recommend the Redarc In-Vehicle BCDC Battery Charger, # 331-BCDC1240D.

This DC-to-DC battery charger will draw power from your trucks charging circuit to provide power to your campers battery bank. It also has a built-in MPPT regulator to work with solar panels if you ever want to add some. This is a smart charger that works with both lead acid and lithium chemistry battery banks. Once it detects the need to provide a charge, it provides a 3 stage charge profile, first, boost/bulk charge, then absorption charge stage and finally a float charge stage to maintain top off.

You can use your AGM batteries to begin with but if you later upgrade/replace with a Li chemistry, it's a simple change of settings. This DC-to-DC charger pulls power from your vehicle's start battery transferring up to 40 amps of current maintain your camper's house battery. The built-in battery isolator function prevents the charger from pulling power from the start battery when the vehicle is off and it is the perfect component for a truck camper.

expert reply by: Michael R