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Here you see the truck being charged up. I ran an
extension cord across the ceiling from the outlet used by the garage door.
I also have a "kill-a-watt" meter to track the charge. Depending on
how far I pulled the batteries down it will take from 2-6 KWH to recharge
the batteries. |
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I place one DualPro on each end of my battery box.
These are rated for marine environments so they are designed to take the
weather. Each charger has 3 12V leads to charge 3 batteries.
After 8 months the batteries are staying well balanced. |
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The onboard chargers are plugged into a standard 6 plug power
strip mounted behind the front bumper. The Chevy trucks have plenty of
extra room for chargers plugs and inverters. The power strip is rated for exterior use.
With my new charger set up I no longer use all 6 outlets. |
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I installed a retractable power cord behind the bumper,
This was a retractable extension cord that I rewired for a plug. It was the most
cost effective thing I could find. It is great there is so much room
behind the bumper of the truck. |
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I have 30' of retractable cord I can use to plug in and
recharge the batteries. When it is not in use it easily retracts
behind the bumper out of sight but a quick pull will allow me to reach
several outlets in the garage. |
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I have monitored the amps pulled during the charging and
total KW used. The first 15 days of testing used 45 KW. The
systems pulls 8.5 amps for the first 2 to 6 hours depending on how much I
have pulled from the batteries.
A full charge on my batteries,
lasts about 45 miles of city driving and takes about 6kw to charge back
up or less than $.60. I have 12 40 amp-hr batteries in two 72V strings. |
