71 amps isn't all that big of a charger. Especially when you are using
a genset to recharge. I can recharge while pulling the cold plates
down. Only having to run an hour in the morning and an hour
in the evening. Mine is 110 amps and I can upgrade it to 220 amps.
I suspect that KOMFY's problem is that his generator is coupled
to an inverter generating MSW output. A friend this past winter had
a Coleman or Honda that was such a unit. It allows the RPM of
the engine to be adjusted automatically to varying loads. Normal
gensets can't do that without the line frequency varying off of 60Hz.

Doug

"Larry W4CSC" wrote in message
...
That's all the CHARGING circuit of your Heart is capable of putting
out. The 1000W is for the INVERTER in it, not the little 10A charger.
1000W/14V= 71Amps. That's gonna be one BIG charger!



On 9 Oct 2003 19:10:53 -0700, (mitch) wrote:

Can't believe I'm the first person with this problem, but did a couple
searches and turned up nuttin...

Have a 1000 Watt Gasoline Yamaha generator connected to a Heart
Interface Freedom 10. Batteries are a pair of 8D gels in parallel,
old but servicable. Monitoring system by Ample Power.

Hook 'em all up, and with batteries at about 50% (12.1 to 12.2) I get
a MAX of 15 amps DC, call it 180 watts into the batteries. Swapped
generators, EXACT same output. A visiting cruiser suspected that the
Heart is REALLY inefficient at generator-based power charging. Maybe,
but 20% efficient sounds a bit loony...

I am currently at anchor for awhile, so the purpose of the Yamaha was
to not require using my Perkins 4-108 with 150 amp alternator in order
to keep my beer cold; I'd rather save my engine for propulsion. But
when I do use the engine to charge, it works as expected based upon
state of charge - 130 amps initially, 3 stages, yada yada.

Ideas?

SV KOMFY
American Samoa


Larry W4CSC

3600 planes with transponders are burning 8-10 million
gallons of kerosene per hour over the USA. R-12 car air
conditioners are responsible for the ozone hole, right?