Jouster,
First, if you are happy with what you have, there is no reason to change. I wasn't happy, so I changed it out. Now I am happy
. BTW, I have only dry camped for the last year. I really hate it when I get to the camp site with a discharged battery.
PD has a device called the Charge Wizzard that controls the converter. Check out their web page for lots of FAQ, curves, and other data. With the wizzard, the PD9160 is a 4-stage charger.
http://www.progressivedyn.prawnserve...zard_home.html
Mode 1: quick charge to 80 or 90% at 14.4 Volts applied
Mode 2: slow charge at 13.6 Volts
Mode 3: OFF. No charge at all. This prevents bubbling water out in storage.
Mode 4: Equalize mode or a surge of 14.4 Volts applied every 23 hours. This stirs the water in the battery daily to reduce sulfation. Sulfation is the formation of the whitish residue that settles to the bottom of the cells. When it accumulates sufficiently to touch the cell bottoms, it must provide a leakage path that drains that cell. Besides, whatever makes up the sulfation is no longer available to do its intended job.
The OEM 6335 device charges at 6 Amps maximum and slowly reduces to a trickle which appears to go on forever, continually bubblling the battery water out. There is no quick charge mode so charging takes about 2 to 4 days.
The best way to get maximum long term capacity out of your battery is to drain it to no less than 50% capacity. I then charge it to 80 or 90% capacity in 1/2 or 1 hour using the PD9160 driven by a 750 Watt generator. Since I am mainly dry camping, this is the way I do it. I prize the campsites with full shade under tall pines, so solar isn't practical.
If you discharge your battery fully (dim yellow lights), you have forever deminished the maximum capacity of your battery by about 10%. Do this 4 or 5 times (say with the refrig on while driving) and guess what; only 60% or 50% of the initial as-new capacity remains. So it isn't wise to over discharge. And therein lies the need for an amp-hour meter like the Trimetric or Xantrec. It has been mentioned that this is like having a gas gauge on the battery. With it you know whether it is time to run the generator or whether you can get another day or two without charging.
I hope this helps. DW would not do well if I let the furnace go out at night where we camp, so it is important to me to keep the battery healthy. That in turn keeps me healthy
!