How to Charge RV Deep Cycle Battery? Everywhere From All Electricity

An RV house battery literally powers your life in an RV (recreational vehicle). It will probably be your power source when dry camping unless relying on a connection to the grid or an expensive generator. 

Without a charged RV battery, your appliances and key infrastructure like water pumps won’t work. Make a mistake while charging the RV deep cycle battery, and you shorten its life at best and kill it then and there at worst. 

If you want to know how to charge RV battery banks, understand there are a few steps you should take every time.

If the water levels are fine or the battery will never need water added, you’re ready to attach the charger to the battery regardless of the type of power source you’ll be using to charge it.

If the RV has a built in generator, this is simply a matter of turning on the generator and letting the battery charge. If the RV has a place to plug in a generator to a built-in converter, you’d need to connect the generator to the electrical system correctly and then turn it on. 

However, you need to be careful since not all RV generators are designed to be a battery charger. In these cases, you’ll need a converter to turn the 120 volts power it generates into something you can connect to the battery. 

A 3-stage battery charger can charge your RV battery using generator power; this could be installed in place of the existing converter in the RV or may even be built into a new, high-end RV. 

This is where buying a generator with a built in inverter and 12 volt plugs you can connect to the battery make life so much simpler. 

Charge time will depend on the battery size, the amps from the generator, what is running at the same time (and draining power) and how low the battery was to begin with. A battery at 20% will take about four times as long to charge as one at 80%.

When you’re charging an RV battery with a generator, check the charge regularly. Don’t overcharge it, since this can cause it to explode.

Conversely, you’ll want to wait at least an hour after you’ve checked the electrolyte and added water to the battery or else it could explode when you try to charge it.

This is an issue even if you have VRLA batteries; their valves are designed to release the traces of hydrogen gas that can build up as a battery ages, not a veritable explosion of hydrogen gas. Don’t leave converters plugged in to a battery.

Yes, the converter attached to your smart generator will charge the RV battery as well as your laptop. 

However, these converters can boil an RV battery as well. This is when you may need a hydrometer to check the specific gravity of the battery to see if you need to add water or just get a new deep cycle battery.

If you’re concerned about fuel for a generator, remember to take the opportunity to charge the RV battery via an RV converter/charger whenever you have power from the grid.

A 3 stage converter will fully and safely charge the RV battery better than the 2 stage converter that comes with many new RVs; a side benefit of these units is that they’re smart enough to stop sending power to the battery when they sense it is full.

You can often charge an RV battery from a vehicle. And you can do it using the same jumper cables you use for charging a dead car battery.

Your battery should now be good to go, assuming you didn’t over-charge it or try to charge a battery with too little electrolyte to receive the charge.

If you have a tow vehicle, you could in theory run that vehicle’s engine and let it charge the 12 volt batteries. However, we’ll leave ignore that for safety reasons and the fact you may not be towing an operational vehicle along with your RV.

If you are pulling a 5th wheel or towing a trailer, many trucks can provide a charge you can use to charge the recreational vehicle battery. It will be a trickle charge, so it won’t charge a depleted battery. 

Getting around this could require rewiring your vehicle and trailer, such as replacing 12-gauge wire with 8-gauge wire. Or you could wait until the truck is stopped and then charge the 12 volt battery from the truck’s battery per the process described above. 

Another option is getting a battery-to-battery charging system. You’ll probably want to consult with a mechanic to install something like this, much less make sure it is safe to use while driving.

Solar panels are always a trickle charge, slowly delivering power to your battery. The key to successfully charging an RV battery with a solar panel is to not drain the battery at the same time. Turn off the lights, don’t use the water pump and let the solar panels just charge the battery.

However, you’ll also need to take care to take weather into account when you want to charge an RV battery with solar panels. If it is cloudy or somewhat shady, give the panels extra time to charge the battery. 

This is where having extra roll out pads of solar panels to charge an inverter so you can charge your cell phone or small electronics can save your RV battery while keeping you from being too bored.

If they’re already mounted to the RV and connected to its power system, just make sure everything inside the RV is off and the converter is set to charge the battery. In other cases, you have to wire the solar panels to the battery to charge it.

For more complex systems, such as when you have multiple solar panels, you’ll need a charge controller; this device will disconnect a battery from the solar panel while those with an MPPT circuit maximize power generated by the solar panel as well.

If your solar panels are unregulated and/or unsupervised, they may fail to charge the electrolyte. In a worst case scenario, they’ll boil off electrolyte, eventually killing the battery.

This is one of the simplest processes. You could use an SMPS adapter or other charger that converts power from the grid to 12 volt DC.

For example, an AC powered float charger designed for charging 12 volt batteries could do the job. You’ll plug that into the wall and connect it to the battery. Then let it charge.

Once done, disconnect and put it all away. In short, this process is similar to charging any other rechargeable battery in your home. 

Disconnect the ground wire of the RV battery so it doesn’t drain while in storage. If the battery is left in the RV, start disconnecting everything else that will slowly drain the battery of power.

Even when they’re off, they drain milliamps of power.

This isn’t as bad as a gaming console using almost as much power in sleep mode as when active, but it will kill the battery if left alone. The solution is to unplug the radios, smoke detector, propane detector and so forth.

If you’re going to leave the RV battery in the garage or store it outside (including in an RV parked outside), make sure the battery doesn’t freeze. Freezing destroys flooded cell batteries, though this isn’t as much of an issue with other types of batteries.

For example, AGM batteries resist freezing better. Never charge a frozen battery, since the mixture of heat and ionized hydrogen can cause an explosion.

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