New batteries loosing charge quickly
Just installed two Sam's club (eveready) 6volt batteries to replace the two 12v marine batteries. All seemed good with set-up at home. Let new batteries charge through on-board converter for a coupl...
Forum Discussion
Any brand converter will do for being on shore power. On generator you want a fast charge and will be doing only 50-80s or the like, then letting solar do as much as it can in the rest of the daylight time to get the SOC higher.
Fast charging means getting the batteries up to say 14.8v and holding that voltage the whole time until the batteries are recharged. Then you drop to 13.6ish as the Float voltage. So which converter does that? None of them.
However, if you get an "adjustable voltage" model, you can set 14.8 and it will stay there until you change it to some other voltage. Perfect for generator recharging and you can also set it to 13.6 for when on shore power.
Two 6s can take around 75 amps as the initial charging rate (75/232 = 32% ) so your best choice is a 75 adjustable voltage converter like this
http://www.bestconverter.com/Boondocker-BPCM-75-75-Amp-Adjustable-Power-ConverterCharger_p_587.html#.V_vKI0cVBpw
If you don't like that, then a PD70 with Charge Wizard would be second best choice (but maybe cheaper in cost) because you can hit the CW button and keep it at 14.4 (there is a 14.8v version) but it does not hold rated constant amps so well in bulk, which means it will take longer to do the recharge.
The regualar Iota and PowerMax converters drop to a Float( lower) voltage "too soon", so they will take longer to do a recharge, and generator run time is what counts.
Fast charging means getting the batteries up to say 14.8v and holding that voltage the whole time until the batteries are recharged. Then you drop to 13.6ish as the Float voltage. So which converter does that? None of them.
However, if you get an "adjustable voltage" model, you can set 14.8 and it will stay there until you change it to some other voltage. Perfect for generator recharging and you can also set it to 13.6 for when on shore power.
Two 6s can take around 75 amps as the initial charging rate (75/232 = 32% ) so your best choice is a 75 adjustable voltage converter like this
http://www.bestconverter.com/Boondocker-BPCM-75-75-Amp-Adjustable-Power-ConverterCharger_p_587.html#.V_vKI0cVBpw
If you don't like that, then a PD70 with Charge Wizard would be second best choice (but maybe cheaper in cost) because you can hit the CW button and keep it at 14.4 (there is a 14.8v version) but it does not hold rated constant amps so well in bulk, which means it will take longer to do the recharge.
The regualar Iota and PowerMax converters drop to a Float( lower) voltage "too soon", so they will take longer to do a recharge, and generator run time is what counts.
