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
They are attempting to -estimate- the amount of time it takes to fully recover to 100%. A stuffed Lifeline.
Thankfully the batteries do not need to be stuffed every time. 14 discharges 14 days whichever comes first is my rule of thumb.
With solar voltaic time must be purchased. Amperage versus the length of time sunlight is productive. There is a choice a) a small generator and a Megawatt, or double the potential of solar amperage at the initial stage of bulk charge.
100 amp hours of Lifeline = charge acceptance of 100 amps initially. How many hours of sunlight does it take to drop amperage to LESS than potential maximum of panel output?
This is "variables city" and it changes by the length and the quality of the solar day. Easy to calculate it isn't. Forecasting this is impossible.
8 hours of beneficial solar but what is the ampere hour yield? Another of my rule of thumbs is ampere hours divided by 40% is a good compromise for high latitude solar panel sizing. Yep 40 amps of panel spec for each 100 amp hours of AGM battery. You have a 40% reduction of harvest at winter solstice on the best of days.
It doesn't matter folks
You undercharge flooded batteries and you will need to equalize them. Hour after hour after hour. Voltmeter, special amperage throttling, and a hydrometer. Pick your poison. AGM is easier to deal with...period.
Hell. I have a tiny 2-cycle Harbor Freight 700 watt generator to power a small Megawatt. Fill the generator, run it until it runs out of fuel, a whole quart and a half. The Lifeline will be stuffed. Sorta dumb to feed a five thousand watt generator to do this...
Campground Quiet Hours make it more complex. Then it may be necessary to snow-shovel amps into the Lifeline and maintain a 14.40 volt charge rate at full absorbsion voltage. This means using near 100-amp capacity chargers. I used to generator charge from 8:00AM to 10:00AM with the generator then let the panels take over.
When the Kubota/Kato goes online I do not screw around. 500+ amps at twenty eight volts. I am not going to toss my money at millionaire oil speculators. Nor am I going to screw up the best AGM battery on the market.
AS far as lithium goes, I wonder how pricey 3,300 amp hours of 24 volts is? Rather spend that kind of money on a Phantom Extended Chassis.
Thankfully the batteries do not need to be stuffed every time. 14 discharges 14 days whichever comes first is my rule of thumb.
With solar voltaic time must be purchased. Amperage versus the length of time sunlight is productive. There is a choice a) a small generator and a Megawatt, or double the potential of solar amperage at the initial stage of bulk charge.
100 amp hours of Lifeline = charge acceptance of 100 amps initially. How many hours of sunlight does it take to drop amperage to LESS than potential maximum of panel output?
This is "variables city" and it changes by the length and the quality of the solar day. Easy to calculate it isn't. Forecasting this is impossible.
8 hours of beneficial solar but what is the ampere hour yield? Another of my rule of thumbs is ampere hours divided by 40% is a good compromise for high latitude solar panel sizing. Yep 40 amps of panel spec for each 100 amp hours of AGM battery. You have a 40% reduction of harvest at winter solstice on the best of days.
It doesn't matter folks
You undercharge flooded batteries and you will need to equalize them. Hour after hour after hour. Voltmeter, special amperage throttling, and a hydrometer. Pick your poison. AGM is easier to deal with...period.
Hell. I have a tiny 2-cycle Harbor Freight 700 watt generator to power a small Megawatt. Fill the generator, run it until it runs out of fuel, a whole quart and a half. The Lifeline will be stuffed. Sorta dumb to feed a five thousand watt generator to do this...
Campground Quiet Hours make it more complex. Then it may be necessary to snow-shovel amps into the Lifeline and maintain a 14.40 volt charge rate at full absorbsion voltage. This means using near 100-amp capacity chargers. I used to generator charge from 8:00AM to 10:00AM with the generator then let the panels take over.
When the Kubota/Kato goes online I do not screw around. 500+ amps at twenty eight volts. I am not going to toss my money at millionaire oil speculators. Nor am I going to screw up the best AGM battery on the market.
AS far as lithium goes, I wonder how pricey 3,300 amp hours of 24 volts is? Rather spend that kind of money on a Phantom Extended Chassis.
