ON a NEW WFCO 8955, at what voltage should

"The first pair of T 105's lasted over 10 years."

How many cycles, and how deep?

How large is your battery bank?

Unless you are over 220 amps it will be harder to hit bulk mode until batteries are depleted somewhat. For two 6 volt batteries or less the 45 amp charger would be the correct model. My 12 year old WFCO has always hit bulk mode at about 85%soc. The first pair of T 105's lasted over 10 years.

It should be noted that the charger can output 45 amps (or more dependent on model) at 13.7 volt charging. Using a clamp -on meter would confirm this. Not seeing 14.4 volts does not always mean "bulk " charging is needed for a longer time. Don 't panic from some posts here unless you have actually seen problems with your current batteries.

yankee camper wrote:
2 years ago I purchased a WFO8945 replacement converter from Randy at Best Converter.Did a complete wire upgrade from battery to converter with 4ga. welding cable. Converter would not go into boost mode.Called Randy and he asked me to call WFCO(he gave me a name and number) and explain to him what was going on and then call him back and tell him what the rep. said.Randy said he was getting a ton of returns because of this situation.Long story short the rep. at WFCO said and I quote "You're NEVER gonna see it"-boost mode.He went on to tell me a story about a test they did at the factory with something like 25-100 watt light bulbs and the converter would not go into boost mode. The whole conversation was almost comical because no matter what I said or asked they guy just kept saying "you're never gonna see it" I bought a Progressive Dynamics 4645 w/charge wizard and never looked back.The only knock I have with the PD is that it emits a lot of RFI and my stereo reception took a nosedive compared to the WFCO, but at least it works as it should.

I think I will keep my reliable and quiet WFCO converter with gentle (13.6V) daily generator charging and supplement converter battery charging once during a 2 week dry camping session with my Vector smart charger that will charge at a higher rate. That has worked for our camping style for 7 years.

Dick

2 years ago I purchased a WFO8945 replacement converter from Randy at Best Converter.Did a complete wire upgrade from battery to converter with 4ga. welding cable. Converter would not go into boost mode.Called Randy and he asked me to call WFCO(he gave me a name and number) and explain to him what was going on and then call him back and tell him what the rep. said.Randy said he was getting a ton of returns because of this situation.Long story short the rep. at WFCO said and I quote "You're NEVER gonna see it"-boost mode.He went on to tell me a story about a test they did at the factory with something like 25-100 watt light bulbs and the converter would not go into boost mode. The whole conversation was almost comical because no matter what I said or asked they guy just kept saying "you're never gonna see it" I bought a Progressive Dynamics 4645 w/charge wizard and never looked back.The only knock I have with the PD is that it emits a lot of RFI and my stereo reception took a nosedive compared to the WFCO, but at least it works as it should.

I am very interested how the test goes.

Have a voltmeter on the converter output in the fuse panel for best data.
Bogart at the battery will not tell the whole story.

MIne rarely left 13.6 volts. I tried all of the suggested fixes of improving the wiring, and the tricks of turning everything on at once.. It was all a waste of time.
Actually though for my use, the 13.6 worked out OK... Except in storage. 13.6 is just too high long term. Especially in the Phoenix AZ heat.

I now have a powermax. It works great. DW is always concerned obout the changing noise levels ans it switches modes... Out WFCO never changed noise levels at all as it never changed modes.
She was used to that, and is have a hard time adjusting to a convertor that actually works like it should... I think I have her about halfway convinced now.:)

This is a bit complicated, so pay attention.

When the batteries are say at 50% SOC, they should be at a resting voltage of about 12.1 volts. As soon as you turn on a charger the voltage "spikes" to whatever. The spike has to be less than to 13.2 volts for the WFCO to decide to go into "Boost"

The spike will be higher if the battery is lower in AH compared with the amps size of the charger. You have a better chance that the spike will be lower if you have a 55 amp charger on four batteries at 50% than with two batteries at 50% and using 55 amps.

That is why smk is always saying to try a 35 amp charger on two batts instead of a 55 amper.

However, if you really want a proper fast charger, despite your only two batteries, you want to escape from that restriction, so a WFCO won't do.

PowerMax, Iota, and PD (but only with its Charge Wizard) will let you go ahead with the higher amp charge on the two batts at 50% and save a bunch of generator time to do "50-90"

Ok, thanks for your reply. I just initiated a draw down. My converter has 5 feet of number 6 wire (I think) to the batteries.

I'll do some memo writing with my Bogart 2030-RV before I start a charge cycle, and monitor it.

My converter has a build date of Oct 2014. I thought they rectified that problem of not going to bulk mode in these newer converters.

Regards

AH64ID wrote:

RobertL0 wrote:
How old was your converter?

They where both new to me. I had one for 4 seasons and never saw boost and the seccond didn't make it a season before I ditched it.

As it was mentioned they need to see the voltage drop at the converter for a set period of time to trigger boost. This is nearly impossible on OE wiring, or any wiring longer than a few feet. They should either monitor voltage pre charge (like PD does) or use current. The method that the WFCO uses doesnt work in application.

RobertL0 wrote:
How old was your converter?

They where both new to me. I had one for 4 seasons and never saw boost and the seccond didn't make it a season before I ditched it.

As it was mentioned they need to see the voltage drop at the converter for a set period of time to trigger boost. This is nearly impossible on OE wiring, or any wiring longer than a few feet. They should either monitor voltage pre charge (like PD does) or use current. The method that the WFCO uses doesnt work in application.

How old was your converter?

AH64ID wrote:
Good luck. As most have noted you will not ever be able to trigger boost mode. I was never able to with two different 8955's and 3 battery setups.

Doesn't seem worth it to run the batteries down to 20% when it is still doubtfull it will go into boost.