PD or Iota for my upgrade?

KendallP wrote:
Seems like I may have mentioned the watts thing several pages back, but yes. For awhile now I've been thinking that this is the key. All the Wizard does is trade volts for amps. Watts remain roughly the same. So you still get a quicker charge in the absorption stage, but without the Wizard, the bulk stage might be about the same. Someone should run a test of the bulk stage with and without the Wizard. As the voltage approaches 13.6, then we can call the bulk stage over.

I've studied the circuit diagram of the PD9100/9200 series pretty closely as disclosed in the patents that PD has on their converters. The Charge Wizard, which also seems to be called the TCMS Total Control Management System, is integrated into the 9200 and separate for the 9100. All it does is lie to the voltage monitoring system and tell it that the voltage on the battery is higher than it is or lower than it is.

The converter then increases or decreases the voltage to compensate. It doesn't trade volts for amps, and the converter isn't constant wattage. There is a current limiting circuit, which appears to activate whenever the voltage is below what it wants to hold and the current has risen to that limit.

That matches what I've seen so far. The PD9280 will put out over 80 amps at over 14 volts if the battery will accept that and the input AC voltage is high enough.