Newbie trying to set up Megawatt for charging
Trying to figure out what all I need to set up a Megawatt for charging 2 120 amp AGM batteries. I was looking at the s-400 Megawatt,cuting one end off some cheap 4 gauge jumper cables from amazon....
Forum Discussion
theoldwizard1 wrote:DieselBurps wrote:
I would probably spring the cash for the Meanwell but I am looking to use the megawatt for 6 months to 1 year max. I will be in Mexico for the next 3 months and I found down there my solar has a hard time keeping some days, so figured I should add a battery charger to the mix to run for a few hours in the morning.
Megawatt and Meanwell are NOT battery chargers ! They are AC to DC fixed voltage, power supplies. They have very limited amount of manual range of adjustment.
Will they charge your battery ? ABSOLUTELY, if you are charging it at the battery manufactures recommended voltage. THEY WILL COOK YOU BATTERY JUST AS EASILY ! Run them on a old fashioned mechanical 60 minute timer.
That exactly hints at why the discontinuation of the "T" version of the Parallax RV converters was sad to see. Every time power was switched OFF and then back On ... it went to, and held, a 14.X boost voltage for 4 hours, then it would automatically switch back to a 13.X voltage float voltage and would hold that float voltage until someone interrupted power to it again.
It would have been perfect for some RV battery setups to this very day. For example, my AGM RV batteries require in the range of 14.4 volts for boost and 13.6-13.8 volts for float. With one of the Parallax T converters, all I would have to do for a fast boost charge anytime would be to quickly flip the panel switch to it OFF and then ON to begin a fast charge for 4 hours. No messing around with purchase of another power supply and a timer required.
