Confusion on battery charging
I am confused about the best practices for charging batteries. For 7 years I had 300 AH of Lifeline AGM batteries, 270 watts of solar and a simple charging system. My old camper has a 110 volt c...
Forum Discussion
MEXICOWANDERER wrote:
That "Cheap Charge Controller" will act to fully charge an AGM battery better than a four hundred dollar multi-stage genius charger. It is set to 14.40 volts AFTER your solar panels DO NOT fully recharge the Lifeline and it does something no other machine will do
IT STAYS AT 14.40 VOLTS until you see .5% amperage.
You need a heart rending surplus of solar panels to do the same thing. Like FIFTY AMPERES WORTH. To buy the surplus time during the day to allow amperage to slump.
Do as you wish -- I tried to help. Lifeline is going to echo my words. Adios.
OK, so I get the charger and that will put 50 amps on the batteries until I reach 14.3. Then I guess I will still need to run the generator for another 6 hours or more to reach the 0.5 percent level. It is that very long time at 14.3 or 14.4 that I do not understand and that seems to be an issue reducing battery life. It seems I need to overcharge by about 10% (30 AH) every day which is more than I actually use. Maybe that is the way it is supposed to work but it makes little sense to me.
