Charge rate for Progressive Dynamics PD 4645?

You must have had a 6345. The 7345 will run at 45 if loaded and wiring will allow. A forum member (Phil) uses his 7345 on his AGMs but his AGMs specify 13.8v

IMO don't leave the portable charger at home if you are travelling. You never know when your converter will die and you would want to replace it in slow time and get the best deal, probably after you get home. You would likely pay way more buying from an RV store somewhere while in a hurry.

Thank you all for the replies.

I just installed this unit into my truck camper, to replace the old Magnatek 7345 unit. That unit had a constant charge voltage of around 13.7 volts, all the time. I have a grp 31 Lifeline AGM (only one, that's all the room I have in my older TC) so when I wanted to do a decent charge, I would break out my external smart charger, separate the battery from the 7345 and give it a decent charge at a 15 amp rate. I would also disconnect my solar panel (a 140 watt unit) as the max I could get out of that was around 8 amps @ about 14.4 volts, in perfect, sunny conditions. According to Lifeline, that is too low a charge rate, at boost, and runs the risk of sulfation.

I also had to diddle a bit with my external smart charger. It is a cheap Schumaker that has three battery type settings; standard lead-acid, AGM and gel cel. 15 amp max rate. The AGM setting was actually too high a voltage for my Lifeline (again, according to their specs) as it ran at voltages higher than the 14.2-14.4 range that Lifeline recommended. The gel cel setting actually ended up being the closest to what Lifeline recommended.

So, now I dont have to carry my external charger and I can just plug in my TC or run the genny every few days on the road and not worry about the charging.

WOW, a potential 45 amps! Thats great. I believe the info on my old Magnatek said the max charge rate was only 5 amps, not the full output of the converter, minus whatever was needed to power 12v accessories.

To carry that farther, if for some unknown reason you were drawing 55 amps of DC current, (possible but not probable) the charge rate would be zero, (or minus 10) w/ that other 10 amps above the 45 amp rating, would be coming from the batteries,.....not a good situation for converter or batteries.

Instead of "charge rate" the OP might say "DC output." AFAIK the converter or solar will first supply other loads with the battery getting what's left over.

What you actually see at the battery also depends on the wiring between the converter and battery which can reduce the amps flow to something less than the converter is rated for as its output.

Then besides that, the battery has to be able to accept that many amps or else it will only accept as many as it can.

It will put out 45 amps on 2 discharged batteries, especially if 12v items are being used at the same time.
If no 12v items are being used at the same time, you won't see 45 amps very long, as it will spend much more of its time around 35 to 40 amps.

Hi,

In theory, 45 amps. In real life it is dependent on the quality of the wave form of the incoming 120 volt, and on the voltage. I do occasionally "see" slightly over 30 amps on my PD 40 amp converter.

On a 45 amp I'd hope to see 35 amps under ideal conditions, in boost mode.

Moved from Forum Technical Support

With 45AMPS capacity mean when you hit two deep cycle 12VDC batteries with 14.4VDC BOOST Charge from the PD4645 unit it should re-charge those two batteries from a 50% charge state to a 90% charge state in around three hours time using smart mode charging technology. To fully charge those same two batteries to a full 100% charge state it will re-charge them in 12 hours time.

You can immediately start using a 90% charged state battery and expect almost full performance for around 12-14 deep cycles from 50% charge state to 90% charge state. After that however you will need to do a FULL 100% charge state to keep from doing harm to your batteries.

The rule of thumb is a deep cycle 12VDC battery will demand right at 20AMPS of DC charge current per battery and then slowly start dropping back on current demands as the charge continues.

So says Progressive Dynamics at any rate...

We follow this re-charge schedule all the time when camping off the power grid and have had great success maintaining our 255Ah battery bank since installed in 2009.

Roy Ken

Should be close to the 45 amps if no other 12 volt items are being used. You would reduce charging by the amount of other draw.
PD 4600