Charging questions.

How much does a shady campsite affect solar charging?  We were at Glacier National Park, all sites are very shaded, we could generate enough power to maintain the batteries but couldn't replace any of our nighttime usage.  Also, when running the generator to charge the batteries would it hurt anything to attach an auxiliary charger,?  I have a charger with the option of 6 or 12 volts and a 2 amp or 30 amp settings.  I'm guessing I'd use 12 volts and 30 amps and hook the cables to the terminal.that do NOT have the cable connecting the two batteries.

Thanks and happy trails!
Gary

Red + on 1st battery, Black - on second.

Yes you will get higher voltage out of a charger than the converter, so a faster charge.

20% shade will eliminate any charging.

Hi Tall Guy Gary,

keelhauler is correct on using a secondary charger with the main generator.

I do that exclusively with our 2007 model year PC-installed Tripp-Lite inverter/converter turned on and also our 4-10-20-40 amp smart charger setup as shown and set to 40 amp charging.  It never charges at 40 amps because it quickly drops as needed to a lower amperage.  It starts out usually around 20 to 25 amps and I stop when it settles which is always less than 10 amps because we got things operational in the rig at the time.  I find it necessary to run the generator daily, on-average for an hour to get the charger down to single-digit charging.  I get to "full charge" only at home because I never kill the power to the RV during a trip.  In the picture here, the read-out stated 11.7 amps at that moment.

Thanks for the input!  Running the generator less time annoys fewer people including me.  My charger isn't a smart one (purchased 30+ years ago) my thought is to watch the battery monitor and shut things down at about 94-96%.  How does that sound?

By the way, greetings from North Cascades National Park, this place is unbelievable! 

Thanks again!
Gary

How does that sound?

I just tried the battery charger and my battery monitor didn't increase % at all, it actually decreased.  Could it be that since the charger isn't part of the system the charge it gives doesn't register?  The needle in the gauge on the charger started out reading 3/4 and after a half hour had dropped to 1/2.  Seems like it was working just not registering on the monitor.  Does that make sense?  If that's the case how do I monitor the battery level?

Please explain battery Monitor?
A voltage meter connected where?
A Bogart RV monitor?

I just tried the battery charger and my battery monitor didn't increase % at all, it actually decreased.  Could it be that since the charger isn't part of the system the charge it gives doesn't register?  The needle in the gauge on the charger started out reading 3/4 and after a half hour had dropped to 1/2.  Seems like it was working just not registering on the monitor.  Does that make sense?  If that's the case how do I monitor the battery level?

Since battery chargers don't draw current (they are not a resistive load or "sink") then when you connect 2 battery chargers in parallel... Only one of the chargers actually do anything, the other pretty much just idles. The charger putting out the higher charge voltage will be the active charger, even if the idle charger can output more current (amps). 

Here's a link to a short discussion of the issue.

https://www.quora.com/What-will-be-the-effect-if-more-than-one-charger-is-connected-in-parallel

There's other more detailed discussions available.

https://www.google.com/search?q=connect+two+battery+chargers+parallel&oq=connect+two+battery+chargers+parallel

Well, I figured it out.  It seems that it takes awhile for the Bogart monitor to realize that an extra charge has been put into the batteries.  I used the auxiliary charger with the generator running for about 20 minutes, left for a walk with the batteries at 82%, returned an hour later to 99%.