[VAC] Re: Battery chargers in lieu of the Univolt

[Jim Dunmyer <jdunmyer@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Carol & Oliver,
 I bought a StatPower 20-amp 3-stage battery charger last December; it
was a "factory refurb" and was sold directly through their Web Site.
(http://www.statpower.com) Cost was a bit under $200.00, IIRC. 

This thing worked great, being a true 3-stage charger. It has a manual
control to initiate equalizing of your battery bank (something that
should be done periodically with wet-cell batteries) and a selector for
gel-cel batteries, which must be charged at a slightly lower voltage.
However, only a couple of weeks into our long trip this Winter, it
crapped out. Disappointing, to say the least. Had I been close to the
end of the trip instead of near the beginning, I'd have considered
getting it repaired by StatPower, but we were 1000 miles from home and
weeks away from our planned return. Soooo...

We stopped at the Myrtle Beach Camping World store and bought an
Intellipower converter with the Charge Wizard controller, making it into
a 3-stage charger. I set it on the floor and connected the wires, I
still need to mount it permanently. It functions just as advertized, I
can watch the voltage on the eMeter. It'll go to 14.6 for a short time
after "plugging in" to shore power, then drop to 13.65. After 24 hours,
it'll drop to 13.2 volts, with a "zero" charge rate. It usually shows
"no" or "nearly no" charge rate at the 13.65, as far as that goes. You
can manually force it into any of the 3 modes, and when it's at rest,
it'll go to 14.6 volts for 15 minutes every 24 hours or so.

Cost at C.W. was about $230.00 (President's Club price) for the I.P. +
C.W.

Others may have had better luck with the StatPower, I can't say. I
didn't know about the Intellipower at the time; it wasn't in the C.W.
catalog back then. And, I really don't know about service life or
warranty problems with the I.P., I've only used mine for 6 weeks on the
road. The trailer hasn't been plugged in since we returned, but the
solar panels will maintain the charge anyway.

You'll need to look at your UniVolt to see what else might be involved
in the conversion. Our '68 G.T. had a straight 12 VDC output, with the
various circuits being protected by circuit breakers in the Master
Control Panel. Others have a fuse panel mounted right in the end of the
UniVolt, with the wiring for the branch circuits all terminating at that
point. If you have the former, you just put the replacement charger in
the hole and connect the output to the battery. If you have the latter,
you'll have to come up with a fuse panel of some sort. Some folks have
removed the fuse panel from the old UniVolt and mounted it seperately,
others have installed some sort of replacement. West Marine, among
others, sells suitable fuse panels, and you can probably get something
that will work from your local autoparts store. Such stuff is sold to
car nuts to fuse accessories. You can get as fancy as you want, but the
wiring is pretty straightforward.

FWIW: the converter that was in the Avion (removed to install the
StatPower) provided 12 VDC for battery charging and AC voltage to power
the trailer when it was plugged in to shore power. A relay connected the
AC output to the battery when the 120VAC power was off. I now have the
main line to the fuse block connected to the battery, along with the
converter, as the new one has no seperate circuits, it's just a big
battery charger.

An additional advantage of the Intellipower is that (I think) it'll work
without any battery at all. Some other units require the battery to help
regulate and filter the voltage. If this is an important point to you,
let me know and I'll double-check the manual. Both units (StatPower and
IntelliPower) are much lighter than the old UniVolt. The I.P. is also
much more compact; it has a small fan to help cool it, but the fan runs
only when necessary. (I've never heard ours run at all)

That's my experience, take it for what it's worth. :-)

                                  <<Jim>>