Charging GC2 with Rogue MPPT Solar
Charging a pair of USB2000 golf carts with the Rogue MPPT 3048. US battery says the absorb voltage should be 14.7V (for 2 GC2 in series) held for 2-3 hrs, with charge terminated by max time or when...
Forum Discussion
BFL13 wrote:
My GC2s are doing well with solar while camping where the controller takes them to 14.8, then drops to float (with no absorption time at 14.8) of 14.4 for the rest of the day (except for times at loaded voltages when using DC stuff). The SG gets to baseline by dark if the time at 14.4 is from mid-afternoon or before.
So IMO don't sweat the details of the Rogue so much, the batts will do ok as long as they are getting "something like that."
13.6 for float while camping is too low IMO. You need as much time in the 14s as you can get. The voltage drops overnight, so that is your actual "float/take a break" time for the batts.
Storage is different from camping. Now you don't want a prolonged time in the 14s daily.
Your decent SG tool is a $6.00 hydrometer--the glass tube with the bobber showing green white red and numbers, not the useless plastic flat bulb with the sideways needle type.
So you've eliminated the absorb step, and raised the float to 14.4V, when camping anyway. I can see the advantage to that. With the Rogue, if the voltage then dropped to 13.9V (14.4 minus 0.5), it would switch to MPPT and optimally bring the batts up to 14.7 or 14.8V.
I dunno. It's so different from the USBattery recommended routines.
With so little time at 14.7 or 14.8 (none really), don't the batteries take a lot longer to get fully charged?
