has anyone used one of these

[peanutcrusher]

i've just brought one of these:
ctek multi XS 25000 12v charger, i've got it to charge up my second battery when on site with 240v hookup, the plain is to hard wire it to the battery so as soon as i have hook up it will charge and power my system. these anyone have any thoughts as to weather this will do the job or is there something else i should be looking at. bearing in mind i want it to power my screens, DVD and amps and not a normal kitchen conversion.

[francophile1947]

That's one hell of a charger and one hell of a price - it'll power up to 300 watts.

[g8dhe]

Bear in mind the equipment he intends to run. Personally I don't intend getting to close to any camp site he's on

[peanutcrusher]

is that in a good way or do you think i've a bonfire in the making

[g8dhe]

If correctly wired up with adequate cable sizes and connectors, then no problem.
I've run amplifiers generating a lot more power than your intending (although on slightly different frequencies from vehicles using car batteries.

Whether you need that sort of power level in the audio range is a matter for you and your ears, and possibly those in the vicinity ....
you might find it worthwhile of course installing an induction loop in the vehicle (for those using hearing aids) whilst installing the other power cables

[peanutcrusher]

do you think there will be a problem with it being hard wired to the battery when the van is running or will it send a feed back into the charger and damage it so worse still kill it.

[g8dhe]

Well no certainty without seeing the cct diagram for the charger, but a unit of that quality ought not to have a problem with seeing the vehicles alternator in action whilst connected to the battery. It does specify "low back current drain" in the spec. so I wouldn't myself have too much to worry about as its obviously been tested to ensure that current flowing into the charger won't cause harm.

[peanutcrusher]

it might be worth me calling the place where i brought it from tomorrow and double checking with them don't you think. it is the one they said i should use on my system at minimum. it does not come with hard wire cables so I'll have to unsolder the crocodile clips to be able to hard wire it. i could put a kill switch in place between the charger and the battery so as to stop the charge feed back or do you think that is over kill.

[g8dhe]

I doubt that that charger will be your problem.

The gauge of cable you going to be using from each amplifier to the battery, its length, the fuse holders and battery connector are going to be the critical ones from the amplifiers point of view.
The charger will need its own cables to the battery (it also needs a pair of sense wires) (it should already be fused / protected at the charger end) but in a permanent addition to the vehicle you should also have a fuse at the battery end, in case the cable from battery to charger gets damaged and shorts to earth.

Have you ever installed high power amps before in a vehicle ? You can get away with lots of things, but just remember that in arc welding you start with currents in the order of 50+ Amps, now each of your amplifiers are fused at about 60Amps so the cables will be quite capable of doing a fair imitation of an arc welder set-up if you develop a fault!

[peanutcrusher]

great so I'll be driven a mobile arc welder around, waiting for it to turn into a fire ball. all based on the wiring setup. better great it right then i guess.

[g8dhe]

Well I quite like dry roasted peanuts, but I would prefer them not crushed so I hope it doesn't happen to you

[peanutcrusher]

i've spoken with the place i brought the charger from they said it will be fine to hard wire in place, there is no problem with feed back into the charger. just need to make sure the cables i wire it all up with are up to the job. I'm thinking of using a good heavy duty thick cable around 20mm. do you think this will be think enough or not? i will be using smaller cables for the other units the 20mm is just for the amps.

[g8dhe]

The manuals all state that you should be using a minimum of 8 AWG per amplifier or if your going to run both of a single feed then at least 4 AWG - here is a link that will let you work out the physical sizes and resistance depending on how long the runs are. (I would use a cable for earth as well, don't rely on making chassis connections). Here is a link as well for vehicle cable sizes.