Battery minder on a generator ?

[Walter L]

I bought a elchepo battery minder 13 years ago from Harbor Freight and hooked it to my house gen and replaced the battery for the first time 4 yrs ago, hasn’t ben a problem for me.

 

[PILOON]

My generator lives with a battery minder wired in and that going on 6 years now.
I never disconnect it either.
I did however destroy the original battery due to the fact that I had a cheepo charger originally installed.
I dismantled el cheepo (like about $10.) for a look see and found that it was merely a small transformer with a single diode and that it actually put out 18 VDC open line.
No wonder it destroyed the battery.

 

[CobyRupert]

As others say, you're probably good to have charge running when genny is running.

However you could always run power to charger through a relay that drops out when the power goes off and has to be manually reset.
Remember, the charger is off when the genny starts during a power outage.
Something like this:


Where the charger is wired like the "motor on light" (circle with "rays") shown at the bottom right of the drawing.
The "start" button has to be pressed after a power outage in order to turn charger back on. Stop button isn't really required, unless you want to turn charger off when manually exercising the genny.

If your genny automatically exercises?.....uhm...don't know.....maybe there's a normally closed contact at the genny that opens and can be wired in place of the stop switch?

 

[Walter L]

I bought a elchepo battery minder 13 years ago from Harbor Freight and hooked it to my house gen and replaced the battery for the first time 4 yrs ago, hasn稚 ben a problem for me.

 

[jaydee325]

I just had a whole house Generac installed last August. The owners manual states that the charger is integrated with the control module and operates as a smart charger. There is a warning to not use external battery chargers.

 

[grsthegreat]

they might not be talking about automatic backup generators. the modern auto backup units have battery tender circuits integrated into the control board. Ive seen lots of portable generators with smart chargers added and they do just fine. never seen an issue as long as its a descent charger unit. you get what you pay for. The newer Champion line of portable generators come with an included charger unit.

I know that the Generac whole house units will actually shut down in 2-3 days if it is running and the battery isnt being charged. The T1 circuit uses 120 volts to operate the built in charging circuit in the control board.

 

[300UGUY]

they might not be talking about automatic backup generators. the modern auto backup units have battery tender circuits integrated into the control board. Ive seen lots of portable generators with smart chargers added and they do just fine. never seen an issue as long as its a descent charger unit. you get what you pay for. The newer Champion line of portable generators come with an included charger unit.

I know that the Generac whole house units will actually shut down in 2-3 days if it is running and the battery isnt being charged. The T1 circuit uses 120 volts to operate the built in charging circuit in the control board.

I’ve got a older Generac unit. No charger, no hour meter, and you have to adjust the valves at 400? Hours.

 

[grsthegreat]

I’ve got a older Generac unit. No charger, no hour meter, and you have to adjust the valves at 400? Hours.

even the real old 1990generacs had a charger block located withing the transfer switch. the new ones have it within the generator itself. even the current ones need valve adjust at 25 run hours and every 400 run hours after that.

 

[300UGUY]

even the real old 1990generacs had a charger block located withing the transfer switch. the new ones have it within the generator itself. even the current ones need valve adjust at 25 run hours and every 400 run hours after that.

I’ll look at that today. Puppy sitting right now. ��

 

[RalphVa]

I've had an old outdoor Battery Tender (the brand) on our Isuzu diesel generator's battery for around 5 years. When I installed a knife edge quick shutoff on one of the terminals, I removed it then and reinstalled it. Otherwise, it's been there virtually the entire 5 years.

For nearly the first year (2013), I'd bought a new Battery Tender for indoor use and decided to put it on the generator's battery after installing the generator in about fall or winter of 2012. The indoor one was protected by a door over the outside plug I had it installed in; so I figured it would be okay. Actually, I had it on a smaller generator for a year or two before; it was protected by a door on the outdoor plug there. It did not last long on the bigger (marine) battery of the Isuzu.

I had an older outdoor one (one on it now) and put it on in place of the indoor one, sometime in 2013.

Somewhere along in there about 2013ish, I tried a solar panel to keep the Isuzu's battery up. It wasn't up to the job. I needed more for my remote gate; so, I put that solar panel and its built-in battery tender in parallel with the one that the gate contractor put on the gate. It still have to swap out the marine battery on the gate system about once or twice/year for a full charge via one of my bigger battery chargers. The 2 solar panels (probably about 20 watters) aren't enough to keep that battery up.

I've had a little 5w solar panel keeping a utility battery up that runs my 12v fence charger for about 17 years. For a while, I put a little Battery Tender designed for that between the solar panel and the battery, to keep it from being overcharged. That little Battery Tender did not last. I've gone back to having the battery hooked directly to the panel. Solar has been fine in this application. A utility battery lasts for about 3 years. An electronic fence charger went for about 12 to 14 years.

The big marine battery on the Isuzu has to not only run its little LCD panel but also the panel inside the house. Guess there's quite a bit of draw on it. That old outdoor Battery Tender works fine.

Ralph