RJsfishin wrote:
I wouldn't hesitate to change from 45 to 55 and no change in wire.
You need to know.....or remember that you may have a little voltage/amperage loss at 55 amps, but the amount of time the charger spends at 55 amps is so short, its not even worth talking about, and surely not worth pulling new wires. In 10 to 15 minutes you will see more like 45 amps, and another 20 minutes it will settle in at 35-40 amps for a much longer period of time.
So base your wire calculations on 40-45 amps, not 55.
But that's not saying that bigger is not better. And if it will make you feel better, go for it. All I'm saying is you will not notice any difference on generator run time.
And of course that is based on a PD converter w/ the wizard/pendant control
An excellent description of the PD's charging profile, as also reported by others. (Lame in Bulk--doesn't do constant amps as rated)
In past discussions of this, some forum members suggested that if you want proper amp performance with a PD, you should get the next higher amps size model. So in this case as RJ says, the 55 is "worth" a proper 45, and proper 45 wiring will be fine for it.
(BTW, I don't like the charging profiles of any of the usual brands of converters, not just PD's, so I use an adjustable voltage model and create my own charging profile. People with inverter chargers that have voltage settings do the same. )
It may not be much difference in generator time as RJ says in some cases, but it can make quite a difference in other cases depending on:
-the size of the charger in amps
-the size of the battery bank in AH
-the SOC range of the recharge (50-80 or 60-90 whatever)
-how often you ever do this each year
-will it put you over your park's gen time limit or be within it?
(As it stands now for what is available, if I could not have an adjustable voltage converter like my adjustable PowerMax, I would choose the PD and Charge Wizard, being sure to get the next size larger and mount it right next to the batteries with short fat wire. I would count on the solar later in the day to get the batteries to 14.8 whenever possible if that is what their spec requires.)
