Can I charge 12V battery with Yeti 400?

[PoulsboMom]

When we park the camper and dry camp, we use our vehicle for day adventures. We can easily charge the Yeti in the 12V socket in our vehicle, but can't charge the 12V marine battery so easily. It seems there should be a way to connect the yeti to charge the camper's battery but I cannot locate instructions anywhere.

If not, is it possible to take the 12V battery from the trailer and safely charge it from our vehicle with a cable into the 12V socket?

THANKS!!!

 

[jonyjoe101]

To charge from the yeti you would need a dc boost converter and also a buck converter. The boost converter will take the lower voltage boost it up to 18 volts then the buck converter will buck it down to 14.4 volts or whatever you need. The reason you need both is the voltage between both batteries is too close to each other. A boost converter by itself might not be able to charge at more then 1 or 2 amps.

To charge from the cigarette plug, you need to have the car engine running to get the higher voltage 14.4 volts needed by the battery. Even with the engine running when I charge from cigarette plug I only get 3 to 4 amps charge power. But if you run it through a boost/buck converter you will get higher amps with or without the engine running. With the engine not running you won't get much charge with just the plug, when the voltage of both batteries equalizes, thats it.

I ran into the same problem of trying to charge agm, lifepo4, li-ion from my 13.1 volt house battery and the only thing that work for me was the boost/buck method.

Picture of a boost/buck charger for my 14.7 volt fullriver agm battery. I can easily charge at 2 amps or higher from my 13.1 volt house battery. My fullriver 27ah agm is my start battery, since the alternator doesnt go above 14,4 volts (and the fullriver needs 14.7 volts to fully charge) I use the house battery running through this boost/buck charger to top it off every night. Works excellent.

The other method is to use one of those RC dc chargers, those are actually boost/buck chargers in a smaller package and most can charge lead acid, the only drawback they need to be programmed everytime, and the input power has to be stable.

 

[4x4tripping]

With the yeti 400 you could try to use too an ctek charger, plugin into the included 110/220v power socket (inverter)

Something like https://www.ctek.com/uk/products/car/mxs-5-0-uk can do the job.

But it makes just sence, if you try to maintain the starter battery. Your marine battery us a 3nd battery in the rear?

If, then better use a dc dc booster/charger like jonyjoe101 mentioned here, to charge the marine battery - so the yeti is not part of the setup.

Die Stromversorgung im Reisefahrzeug

Die Stromversorgung im Reisefahrzeug: Landstrom, 220v Konverter, B2B Ladebooster und Solar - alle wichtigen Komponenten für die Selbstschrauber....

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--> VCC 1212-25 IUoU-Li (Marine)

 

[Martinjmpr]

If you're parking the camper in one place while you run around for the day, why not get a basic 100W solar setup and attach that to the camper battery? That's what we do and it does a great job of keeping our 2 x 6v golf cart batteries between 85 - 100% most days.

You can get a simple 100W suitcase setup with a folding panel and a basic solar controller for under $200 on Amazon. That is exactly the setup we've been using for the past 3 years and it's worked great. Whenever we are dry camping or boondocking, we have the solar panel set up to keep the batteries on the trailer charged.

The only change I made to our kit was that I put an SAE connector onto the batteries and onto the output of the Solar Controller, and then I got a 25' SAE extension cord, so I can connect the panel to the batteries without having to open up the battery box and clip on alligator clips. Keeps everything protected from weather, too. Super simple and easy to use.