Bogart Solar Controller...Comments?

Rbertalotto wrote:
Interesting...I just found this information on the Bogart charge controller....

pre-absorb boost charging is not recommended by any battery manufacturers that I know of. It only works on batteries that have been moderately cycled where it can be used to take advantage of peak solar conditions at solar noon, and without excessive heating of the battery. For batteries that have been discharged to 50% SOC it will get your battery way too hot by forcing too many amps into it at the higher boost voltage for the first hour.

Finish charging (delayed boost) is different. It is an algorithm designed to limit current to the battery to no more than C/10 to prevent excessive water use and heating of the battery. And at the same time provide a high voltage finish stage that fully desulfates the negative plates. It is now almost the industry standard recommend charge profile (Trojan, US Battery, Surrette, and all industrial forklift/floor maintenance, locomotive and marine batteries). Industrial grid-powered forklift/floor maintenance and marine chargers have used it for years (IUIa with no float). Currently there are only two RE chargers that I know of that can do it - the XW from Schneider and the SC-2030 from Bogart. Of the two, only the Bogart SC-2030 does it correctly.

No idea what pre-absorb boost means here. Never heard of it. Usually you just start charging by charger or solar controller and it eventually gets the batts to the absorption voltage, whatever that is set at (often 14.4 or 14.8 whatever) The batteries can take lots of amps during this "bulk" stage.

The "new" Finish Stage may not be necessary when on daily shallow cycles on solar such as 80-99s (you don't often get to 100) You can tell by your SG if you need any "overcharging" to get the SG right up. My four 6s don't need that when on daily solar shallow cycle, but they do need the high voltage finish if they have been doing successive 50-90s as with no solar camping.

But any old solar controller can do all that as long as you can adjust the voltage set point Vabs. Even better if you can also adjust its Float voltage.

The Trimetric is way too elaborate IMO and I don't like their whole notion of what it means to be a "full" battery. The allowance for heat during charging is an approximation so the AH counter gets off track after a while and needs a reset. Battery capacity varies a lot with temperature, which varies a lot. IMO their whole % full reading method is bogus.

So making the solar controller tie in with the over-elaborate and often wrong Tri is just hocus -pocus extreme geekiness with no real value compared with any standard controller IMO. YMMV of course :)