Charging a Battery Bank
I am planning on upgrading my batteries to 4 6v batteries wired in series and parallel to have a 12v system with plenty of Amp Hours. There is a ton of information on how to wire things up but nothing...
Forum Discussion
well, 12 pages in to this thread.....
Thngs can always be taken to extremes in the search for Ideal.
Ideal could very well not be worth the effort, or expenditure.
I think there is a big hangup on which product best fits the bill, and in general, a bunch of conflicting yet strong opinions.
Who would not love a fully programmable Magnum inverter/charger?
i mean my solar controller allows programmable Vabs and duration, for 230$, why should a plug in grid powered charger be 4x the price for these same features?
My point is that as a battery ages, that programming needs some massaging as absorption duration will also need to increase. erhaps the absorption voltage itself too.
How is this determined? with a hydrometer or an ammeter, when holding absorption voltage. If these tools are eventually required, then why not utilize them more often and have a manual option that is very easy to manipulate?
But what if a charging source is already in float stage, and one cannot reinitiate absorption voltage without jumping through several hoops, while jumping backwards on one foot while chanting.
"Oh please lord of absorption voltage, please hear my calls and allow my smart charging source to decide again that 14.4v or higher is what my battery desires!......, as I know it to be true"
BFL13, you know as well as I that manually changing voltage takes only a turn of the wrist and a millisecond.
How long does it take to reprogram an automatic charger? Press this button for 5 seconds, then press this button 6 times, then then button 7 times, while holding instucton manaul with DW yelling at you.
One still needs to determine how long to extend absorption voltage, or increase it, and the temperature compensation is another factor in that.
If I had to choose a 3 or 4 stage automatic charger/converter, if I could not instead choose to have a voltage dial, I would choose the charger which did not require a bunch of trickery to respond to my wishes.
Gee, solar and alternator had my still depleted batteries upto 13.1v, when I startedmy generator, yet my converter saaw 13.1, thought the batteries were already fully charged and sought only 13.2v. Now if it was seeking 14.7v 45 amps would flow, but since it wants only 13.2v, one gets to run the generator for 3 amps.
If the user realizes what has happened, how do theuy trick the charging source? Load the batteries with higher loads until voltage drops below 12.6v then restart charging sources.
Seems easier to just have a dial on the charginng source. oh batteries are 77.2F, Turn it upt 14.8v. in about 4 hours, come back and check how many amps the batteries are accepting. Agms at 0.5%? spin dial back to 13.6v. Flooded batteries at 2% of 20 hour capacity, dip hydrometer, or just assume they are full and dial back to 13.2v.
Hold absorption voltage or dial it back to float.
Tricking or overriding an automatic source requires so much more effort than twisting a voltage dial. But at least PD offers a button to press or hold, assuming the human pressing the button has a clue.
Pd 92XX might not hold steady amps on generators in bulk and not be PF corrected, but at least they allow a forced override of target voltage and will revert to automatic after 4 hours without input from the user.
I think it is a shame that powermax adjustable units do not allow 16.2v. Certainly the 19.23v I can achieve with my meanwell rsp-500-15 is overkill, but the way i see it is I could have 3 volts of drop to a battery a hundred yards away and still equalize it, or could perhaps run my laptop directly off of it.
Achieve proper temperature compensated absorption voltage at battery terminals, Hold it as long as is required. That is the lead acid battery golden zone. It all comes down to this in the end. Every lead acid battery requires this to live a respectable cycle life.
Which tools allow this?
how many of them are fully automatic?
Find the compromise.
The manual, adjustable voltage powersupply/charging source compromise, can do it all, with a little input from the human who should be there to occassionally double check the top$$ automatic options anyway.
Do not fear the adjustable voltage option. It gives enormous flexibility and the ability to actually fully charge in the minimal possible time, at just about any battery temperature, and the adjustment procedure is so darn simple and takes a fraction of the time it takes to manipulate an automatic charging source
Thngs can always be taken to extremes in the search for Ideal.
Ideal could very well not be worth the effort, or expenditure.
I think there is a big hangup on which product best fits the bill, and in general, a bunch of conflicting yet strong opinions.
Who would not love a fully programmable Magnum inverter/charger?
i mean my solar controller allows programmable Vabs and duration, for 230$, why should a plug in grid powered charger be 4x the price for these same features?
My point is that as a battery ages, that programming needs some massaging as absorption duration will also need to increase. erhaps the absorption voltage itself too.
How is this determined? with a hydrometer or an ammeter, when holding absorption voltage. If these tools are eventually required, then why not utilize them more often and have a manual option that is very easy to manipulate?
But what if a charging source is already in float stage, and one cannot reinitiate absorption voltage without jumping through several hoops, while jumping backwards on one foot while chanting.
"Oh please lord of absorption voltage, please hear my calls and allow my smart charging source to decide again that 14.4v or higher is what my battery desires!......, as I know it to be true"
BFL13, you know as well as I that manually changing voltage takes only a turn of the wrist and a millisecond.
How long does it take to reprogram an automatic charger? Press this button for 5 seconds, then press this button 6 times, then then button 7 times, while holding instucton manaul with DW yelling at you.
One still needs to determine how long to extend absorption voltage, or increase it, and the temperature compensation is another factor in that.
If I had to choose a 3 or 4 stage automatic charger/converter, if I could not instead choose to have a voltage dial, I would choose the charger which did not require a bunch of trickery to respond to my wishes.
Gee, solar and alternator had my still depleted batteries upto 13.1v, when I startedmy generator, yet my converter saaw 13.1, thought the batteries were already fully charged and sought only 13.2v. Now if it was seeking 14.7v 45 amps would flow, but since it wants only 13.2v, one gets to run the generator for 3 amps.
If the user realizes what has happened, how do theuy trick the charging source? Load the batteries with higher loads until voltage drops below 12.6v then restart charging sources.
Seems easier to just have a dial on the charginng source. oh batteries are 77.2F, Turn it upt 14.8v. in about 4 hours, come back and check how many amps the batteries are accepting. Agms at 0.5%? spin dial back to 13.6v. Flooded batteries at 2% of 20 hour capacity, dip hydrometer, or just assume they are full and dial back to 13.2v.
Hold absorption voltage or dial it back to float.
Tricking or overriding an automatic source requires so much more effort than twisting a voltage dial. But at least PD offers a button to press or hold, assuming the human pressing the button has a clue.
Pd 92XX might not hold steady amps on generators in bulk and not be PF corrected, but at least they allow a forced override of target voltage and will revert to automatic after 4 hours without input from the user.
I think it is a shame that powermax adjustable units do not allow 16.2v. Certainly the 19.23v I can achieve with my meanwell rsp-500-15 is overkill, but the way i see it is I could have 3 volts of drop to a battery a hundred yards away and still equalize it, or could perhaps run my laptop directly off of it.
Achieve proper temperature compensated absorption voltage at battery terminals, Hold it as long as is required. That is the lead acid battery golden zone. It all comes down to this in the end. Every lead acid battery requires this to live a respectable cycle life.
Which tools allow this?
how many of them are fully automatic?
Find the compromise.
The manual, adjustable voltage powersupply/charging source compromise, can do it all, with a little input from the human who should be there to occassionally double check the top$$ automatic options anyway.
Do not fear the adjustable voltage option. It gives enormous flexibility and the ability to actually fully charge in the minimal possible time, at just about any battery temperature, and the adjustment procedure is so darn simple and takes a fraction of the time it takes to manipulate an automatic charging source
