PD Converters and Water Usage
For Dry Campers Only No secret I've been a fan of PD converters for 15 yrs or more, and for more than one reason. The PD maintains my batteries every day of the year, except for the 4-5 months that...
Forum Discussion
Where do you measure the 'converter voltage' with the converter wired to the battery? I can't with mine. I can measure at the converter's output terminals, but the voltage there is affected by the battery's voltage.
The wire joining the battery and converter would have the same voltage at each end if there were no voltage drop due to current flowing. Before the converter's 120v is turned on, you see battery voltage 12.x at the converter.
Turn on the 120v to the converter and boom, you get 13.x at the battery and something higher at the converter. You won't see 14.4 at the converter until the battery has come up very close to that.
So howinheck can you measure the converter's starting voltage at 14.2-14.4 with the batteries connected? Where do you put the meter on it?
It is like solar in a way with PWM. You have a panel with a voltage (Voc) disconnected around 22 volts and your battery is at 12.2 volts. Connect them and you now get 12.2 volts at the panel plus a bit for line loss depending on how much current is flowing. Now you have no way to know what the "panel voltage" is--there is no place to measure it.
The wire joining the battery and converter would have the same voltage at each end if there were no voltage drop due to current flowing. Before the converter's 120v is turned on, you see battery voltage 12.x at the converter.
Turn on the 120v to the converter and boom, you get 13.x at the battery and something higher at the converter. You won't see 14.4 at the converter until the battery has come up very close to that.
So howinheck can you measure the converter's starting voltage at 14.2-14.4 with the batteries connected? Where do you put the meter on it?
It is like solar in a way with PWM. You have a panel with a voltage (Voc) disconnected around 22 volts and your battery is at 12.2 volts. Connect them and you now get 12.2 volts at the panel plus a bit for line loss depending on how much current is flowing. Now you have no way to know what the "panel voltage" is--there is no place to measure it.
