Trickle charger to replace Univolt

[jwaldin]

I am living permanently in my 31' Sovereign. The Univolt was not working (had an electrician check it) so I removed it. I only need the 12 volt system for overhead lights so I connected a 12 volt trickle charger which puts out 12 amps to the wires that go the lights and this has seemed to work fine. I'm still a little nervous about this. Does anyone forsee any problems? Thanks in advance for the help.

[Steve McCarter]

Those univolts are expensive, but they do keep the DC voltage from going too high and doing battery damage. Some chargers have limmited cut out circuits, in fact, I have a little one that will take a battery up to 15 volts plus.

I changed out my univolt, after replacing the capacitors a couple times, with a regular trailer convertor. Something left over from a used camping van we had. But I keep an eye on it. With a Radio Shack digital voltmeter and a cigerate lighter plug, you can monitor the voltage to the tenth of a volt. Mine hovers around 13.2 volts Gives me pease of mind and now costs about twenty bucks

Good Luck SteveMc

[RoadKingMoe]

I'd hardly call a charger that puts out 12A a trickle charger. Most of these have no filtering. While this might not be a problem with tungsten lights, I wouldn't want to use it with no batteries with flourescents or electronic equipment.

I have a 55A Magnetek that's only been used for about 7 months. If I could get $120 (shipped in the 49 states) for it, I'd pull it out sell it so I could put a fancier unit in there.

The literature says it's okay to run it on your appliances without a battery load being connected.