Battery charging info
After living on 12 volts full-time for 8 years, I've put together a series of blog posts sharing everything I've learned about battery charging, different kinds of charging systems and the unique quir...
Forum Discussion
jynrnn7 - The Outbacks use the Bulk time to calculate the Absorb time because the length of time the batteries spend in Bulk is largely dependent on how discharged they are. If they were more discharged at the start of the charge cycle, they will need to spend more time in Absorb.
Morningstar handles this by looking at what the lowest voltage was that the batteries reached overnight. If they got below a certain level, they stay in Absorb longer, and if they got to a really low level they don't go into Float at all...
The only limitation to that approach is that if they got really discharged overnight but some other charging system got going before the sun came up, they might be fully charged at sunrise and not need to spend much time in Absorb.
This would happen if you had a big alternator on your MH or boat engine and you started driving/motoring at midnight and went all night... by sunrise you wouldn't need much solar charging if any.
Morningstar handles this by looking at what the lowest voltage was that the batteries reached overnight. If they got below a certain level, they stay in Absorb longer, and if they got to a really low level they don't go into Float at all...
The only limitation to that approach is that if they got really discharged overnight but some other charging system got going before the sun came up, they might be fully charged at sunrise and not need to spend much time in Absorb.
This would happen if you had a big alternator on your MH or boat engine and you started driving/motoring at midnight and went all night... by sunrise you wouldn't need much solar charging if any.
