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Old 09-21-2018, 09:23 PM   #1
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Inverter/charger charging when plugged in?

Ok, I’m out camping thus weekend and am having a brain-blank on this: when plugged into shore power, does my inverter/charger (Trace Engineering aka Xantrex) automatically charge my batteries or do I have to turn it on to charge? All my AC breakers are on and we’re running our Starcool. In my defense in 6+ years of owning our SMB we’ve camped with shore power probably less than 10 times! Thanks...

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Old 09-21-2018, 11:36 PM   #2
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Inverter/charger charging when plugged in?

Believe it should be charging your batteries if you’re plugged in-charger side. If it’s a unit that has a remote on/off, you’ll only need to turn that on to run power to the outlet(s)-Inverter side
Battery monitor? Solar/solar charger?
Either should give you your battery status to show it’s either being charged and/or topped off.
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Old 09-22-2018, 07:38 AM   #3
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One easy check is to check the battery voltage....if it's above 12.8V you are charging....


You must have a voltage readout somewhere.....or use a multimeter.
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Old 09-22-2018, 08:02 AM   #4
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It has been a while sense I looked at a Trace Manual, but I believe their default setting would be charge only when plugged in, it should leave the AC in bypass mode and charge the battery. This function can be slightly different on different manufactures, models.
For the Tripp-Lite SMB used it was pretty much like REF said, I know my Magnum Inverter has a distinct charge on button.

In any event with any of these inverters you could be suffering from two things when running just the charger, the Starcool is a heavy use AC item, if there are any other things plugged into the AC at the same time they will also add to the consumed AC power. If this goes up high enough the charging power is automatically dropped down so that it can support the AC Loads. This means it is possible your charge input would be lower than it would be normally (Say if Starcool wasn't running).

The second problem when running Starcool is that it also has a pretty high DC current draw (especially when blower is on high). This high DC load along with any other DC items you might be using would divert a good deal of the DC power from ever actually going into the battery. So it could appear that the battery was not charging.

In any event, if the charger was not working , it would be a pretty serious drain on the battery, and I expect you would find that out before getting back to this post.

hope this helps

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Old 09-22-2018, 10:57 AM   #5
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Is this at a campground with dedicated true 30 amp power? This can make a big difference in the Starcool and ability to also charge. If it is only a 20 amp circuit your barely ok for the Starcool to work well.
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Old 09-22-2018, 07:01 PM   #6
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Thanks all! Yes it’s a 30amp outlet. Looks like I’ll be reading my manual when I get home!
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