PD or Iota for my upgrade?

Salvo wrote:
You got to be kidding! The spec says it's supposed to operate down to 105Vac. It does not. The design is woefully deficient. No one has ever recorded specified charging current for more than a few seconds before tapering.

I'm not sure what you think I'm kidding about. At 105 VAC, with 14.4 as the target, it went from 80 amps to 60 amps in 3 hours. At 125 AC volts supplied, it was constant at 80 amps up to 14.7 volts.

That means I can expect to recharge the battery at the full 80 amp rate up to 14.7 volts even when it is only down 5-10% in capacity.

I don't find that to be deficient as I consider 105VAC to be extremely low and I never operate that low on the gen. I don't have any competing converters to test, so I have no idea if they work better or worse than the PD at that excessively low voltage. This was never supposed to be a comparison "which converter is better" kind of test. I was just trying to figure out if the PD would do what I needed it to do, and if not, could I modify it. It's working perfectly for me, and I've tried to share what I learned - good or bad.

I usually charge with the Iota as a byproduct of operating the microwave. There has never been a problem getting max charging current when the gen (Yam 2800) is heavily loaded. Will the PD do that?

The gen was running the refrigerator on AC the whole time (I don't know the wattage of the ref AC element), but as a test, I turned on the 1400 watt heater - the output stayed at 80 amps, but I did that early in the charge period, when it needed less power. My microwave is only 850 watts. I'd have to test generator output voltage with heavy load conditions, but the PD is only about 1200 watts of the 4,000 watts available from my gen, and I never see anything lower than 110 ACV.

At least for me, there didn't seem to be any normal usage conditions that produced less than full rated output, provided I was getting my power from the gen, so I'm very very happy.

I've tried to be as clear as possible about the testing I've done. I was initially convinced that there was a problem with the PD design, but when changing that design didn't show improvement I realized it was the input voltage. I'll be living with the PD more closely for the next month, and when I get back, perhaps I'll have more info. I admit, I'd like to know just where the AC input voltage begins to affect the DC output current.

It may well be that the Iota is less sensitive to lower AC voltage than the PD. I just don't know. I do know I like the manual control and the fact I have the PD circuit diagrams. People with a PD have the option of using a small buck boost transformer to up the voltage at the PD if they regularly have low voltage. A dedicated unit would be around $65 for enough power to supply only the PD. However, under my normal operating conditions, that's not necessary.