Charging the Lifelines questions
As you all know, anything more than clipping the auto charger onto a battery is well above my pay grade, so I have some questions. For the regular charge before the conditioning charge, the Lifelin...
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Lifeline Charging from the Lifeline Technical Manual
The Bulk stage charging current should be set as high as practical resulting in faster charging time. For example charging a 100Ah battery at 50% DOD with a 25A charger would take ((50/100) x 100 / 25) + 2 = 4 hours to reach full charge and a 10A charger would take 7 hours . Charging continues until the battery reaches 14.3V +- 0.1V when the Absorption stage begins.
In Absorption charging the voltage is held to 14.3V until the current drops below 0.5% of the battery’s rated capacity (0.5A for a 100Ah battery) when the Float stage begins.
In the Float stage the charging voltage is reduced to 13.3V +- 0.1V while maintaining the battery at 100% state of charge.
For repetitive deep cycling (deeper than 50% DOD) chargers should have an output current of at least 0.2C (20A for a 100Ah battery.
The above values are for a battery at 77F and the manual has a table for different temperatures. Plus there is a lot of other technical information. Click here to download the manual.
The above makes me wonder how many RV chargers and solar chargers charge Lifelines correctly as they need to be constant current in bulk, constant voltage in absorption and then the float stage.
The Bulk stage charging current should be set as high as practical resulting in faster charging time. For example charging a 100Ah battery at 50% DOD with a 25A charger would take ((50/100) x 100 / 25) + 2 = 4 hours to reach full charge and a 10A charger would take 7 hours . Charging continues until the battery reaches 14.3V +- 0.1V when the Absorption stage begins.
In Absorption charging the voltage is held to 14.3V until the current drops below 0.5% of the battery’s rated capacity (0.5A for a 100Ah battery) when the Float stage begins.
In the Float stage the charging voltage is reduced to 13.3V +- 0.1V while maintaining the battery at 100% state of charge.
For repetitive deep cycling (deeper than 50% DOD) chargers should have an output current of at least 0.2C (20A for a 100Ah battery.
The above values are for a battery at 77F and the manual has a table for different temperatures. Plus there is a lot of other technical information. Click here to download the manual.
The above makes me wonder how many RV chargers and solar chargers charge Lifelines correctly as they need to be constant current in bulk, constant voltage in absorption and then the float stage.
