Do I need a Battery Charger?

[Litespeed]

I'm about to buy a mover for the caravan. The manufacturer recommends that the battery is charged regularly on a battery charger.

Now am I missing something here, because the caravan is always hooked up to the mains whilst on our drive at home with the battery charger switch at the on position and this is also the case whilst on site. Surely this charges the battery the same as any home battery charger????

 

[JeremyClarksson]

A van charger will only charge to appx 13.8V to avoid gassing, a normal stand alone charger is capable of charging a battery to 14.8V.

From my experience using a stand alone charger the battery will give appx 20% + more power but that is a guess - the difference is noticeable!

Have a look at this

http://www.elecsol.com/html/faq.html

 

[ProfJohnL]

Hi Litespeed,

Whilst what Garry says is true, and to eek out the best performance from your battery an external charger may be better, in the context of your question, the normal internal caravan charger will suffice in most cases.

Whilst caravan movers do need quite high currents to start and run, It is important that the battery is in good condition to be able to supply those currents. Fortunately movers are used for relatively short periods of time, and so even though they use high currents they don't use a lot of the batteries total charge capacity.

You will certainly not have a problem if you use sites with mains hook ups.