Charging Camper Battery with Bed Outlet

[ShamrockShooter]

Going dry camping for 10 days in a few weeks to the mountains. Our 17 ft travel trailer has a single battery up front. I usually run our Honda 2200 generator for an hour or so every morning to charge the camper battery. Don't have a solar panel yet.

 

I see the bed outlet is rated for 400watts which I know isn't much, but do you think that would be enough just to charge the camper battery if I plugged the camper 30 amp chord with a 15 amp converter to the bed outlet?

 

I know I would probably burn way more gas running a v8 vs a Honda generator, but it would be nice to know I had an easy backup in case the generator went down.

 

Sent from my Pixel 2 using Tapatalk

 

 

[davester]

That's a terrible idea, as it's very inefficient (you are converting from 12VDC to 110VAC, then 110VAC back to 12VDC).

 

Much more efficient to just hook up booster cables, or wire up camper battery to truck battery, and charge the battery up that way (and running the truck's motor).  Then unhook/disconnect the camper battery when you are done charging it up.

[rkj__]

10 minutes ago, davester said:

That's a terrible idea, as it's very inefficient (you are converting from 12VDC to 110VAC, then 110VAC back to 12VDC).

I agree.

 

It reminds me of all the people who buy an inverter to charge their phone from their car when camping.  There is no need to go DC>AC>DC.

[diyer2]

The Honda generator will last for over 2000 hours if maintained right.

A friend got over that many hours on his before the engine failed.

Do more oil changes than the manual for the generator calls for is what I would do.

I would not use my big dollar truck to charge a battery.

 

 

[ShamrockShooter]

Yeah I figured it was a bad idea. Electrical is not my thing.

Sent from my Pixel 2 using Tapatalk