Moving power from one bank to another, Rock house again

[nothing to lose]

Ok, that remote Rock House I rented earlier this year I have again. For those that remember, I was charging at main home and while driving, then at the remote house I charged another battery bank for that house.

While this is not best, it does work. One bank in the truck charged running an inverter, charger running from inverter charges the house bank. Lots of loses of course.

Well several times my Xantrex power plus unit sat running in an over night rain. Nice night when I went to sleep, rain in morning, Power unit siting in back of truck running. Well I loved and highly recomend those rechargeable Xantrex units still, though mine is bad from the abuse, not normal use. The air compressor tossed a rod, the inverter tries to turn on but goes on and off now with led display show various watts of loads. Still holds a charge well and works great for jump starting cars with dead batteries which was the main reason I got it anyway. The Xantrex would run the Vector charger at 20amps setting. Now I have a old cheap 300watt inverter I use the lighter plug to connect to the 12V power socket on the Xantrex, this ran a Shumacher charger at only 2amps, 12 amps and the inverter shuts down.

So, since I am back at this again, the question is how to best dump the amps hours from the batteries in the truck into those at the house? Now I do have ideas and plans to install a wind gennie this year at that house. Since I don't own the place I am a bit limited to what I can do. I think I can get about 25-35 foot into the air though. Going to build a pipe rack on one of my pickup trucks. This rack will be about 12' high from the ground (legal height is 12.6'). On top of this pipe rack will be about a 20' tilt tower front and rear. I figure built H shape like a football field goal it should be solid to the side forces, braces will support the H front and rear towers to each other  when raised. This should support 4 small gennies eventaully. If needed I can put support under the truck to stop it from swaying on the suspension, like sit it on jack stands at the frame. I think once done I am looking at maybe 30 minute setup or take down time when I need to use that truck, perhaps alot less even. Course the batteries will be in it also.

Now and latter I will still need to dump those and other batteries to the houses main bank. For the Truck gennie I may be able to run lines from the gennies, but because of large trees near the house I probably can't use DC because of the distance and AC I would need a line for each gennie used. So I would probably be better off with a little loss as posible and charge the batteries in the truck, convert to AC like I do with inverters, run all that AC in one line to the batteries, then a charger again to charge 12V dc.

 Now what would be the best way with least losses to do that? And yes it's all 12V system.

Hopefully as things progress I may diary this adventure

Truck tower etc...

[Bruce S]

NTL;

  I'm thinking a diary and lots & lots of pictures.

I had to reread this to get the idea down.

Is this place anywhere near Pocahantas?

Bruce S

[whatsnext]

I thought the same thing while reading this but here goes. Put each battery bank unto a pallet. At the end of your day's drive put the charged one into the rockhouse and take the used one and put it into the now empty truck. No losses except gas for your forklift.

John.....

[nothing to lose]

"Is this place anywhere near Pocahantas?"

Not really, but not that far either.

[nothing to lose]

I am kinda wanting to not be trading them out so much, connects and disconnects to main inverter. And don't have a forklift either.

Hmm, I do have an engine lift though.

You may have gave me a simple easy idea though. Build 2 racks at truck bed height to slide the pallets to and from easily. Loading/unloading batteries is something I try to avoid, but mounted on a skid/pallet to slide the entire bank on and off at once may be doable

I could probably have a couple batteries as a third bank that is always connected so the inverter is never shut down during swaps.

Still, it would be far easier to just suffer a minor loss and charge the ones at the house from the ones in the truck somehow over night.

Dairy? Yes been thinking of that actually. No camera is why I haven't done much of that though. Should either get one real soon myself or I'll highjack the digital I gave my kid.