I am designing a specialty work van. I cannot have solar, there is not electric at the site and I can’t use a generator. I want to put a large battery bank in the van and use alternator and shore power to charge the batteries. Which charger or inverter should I use for this given that I need to charge with alternator but mainly shore power. I do need lights and a lot of 120 volt power. I’m thinking I will need at least 600ah of Life04 batteries. Thanks Stephen
You need to determine 2 key items first, the maximum power draw on your ac system.in Watts and how much energy you need to supply between uses.in Watt-hours (or kW-hours). Only then can and inverter charger and battery bank be sized. You could have a read of the Victron publication Energy Unlimited.
For charging from your alternator, the simplest system is probably one or more Orion XS 50A DC to DC chargers. Search for the Victron product page.
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I need about 400AH to power 120 volt power and 100 ah to power my 12 volt needs. I figured I would use 3 230AH Life04 batteries. I assume I need an inverter and chargers? Can I connect a 30 amp shore power to the DC to DC charger? Do I need an inverter? Thanks
You only need the inverter if you need AC supply.
Otherwise fully DC based is also possible
There are some neat AC to DC chargers.
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As you need ac power in the van you will.need an inverter to generate the ac from the dc batteries. You also need a charger to charge the batteries with links as above post. However, what you can have is a combined inverter charger so only one piece of kit.