The new WFCO's any good ?

grizzzman wrote:


Was the voltage the same between the smart charger and the WFCO?

no, the 35A wfco did its rated 13.6 (12A/hr average) and the 20A smart charger did its 14.?

The only problem I've had with portable chargers (14.?v) is they revert to float too soon when set to their highest charge rate, so after the initial charge has ended, restart @ 2A to get em full, this is for a single marine batt.

mike-s wrote:

road-runner wrote:
=The wattage ratings of small generators are a marketing term

Nope. Your arguing with facts. "Watt" is a standard SI unit, not a marketing term. If a generator can't put out the number advertised, they're lying to you. It is that simple.

That's the point! They are on the edge of lying to you, just like with telephone, cable tv, and airline advertising, where what you pay ends up being a lot more than what's advertised in the big print. When backed into a corner those companies can say "That's our correct base rate". Similarly when backed into a corner the generator manufacturers can say "That's with pf=1". Did you even pay attention to what I said about looking at the specs in the owners manuals?

Don't forget that "New" Converters are SMPS aka Switch Mode Power Supplies
with a bit of additional electronics behind the switching input
By their very nature they act like a "reactive" load with a very poor PF
Unless they have internal PF correction - Very few do

If the load is resistive, aka portable heater, incandescent light bulbs, etc..
Watts equal VA

But when running inductive loads that are not PF corrected, compressor motors transformers etc..
Then VA used will be more than Work done Not equal aka watts will be less
The avg person doesn't think in VA
They think in watts, 1000w is ten 100w light bulbs, 1500w is one portable electric heater
If the generator box said 1000 VA , they would be lost, "what does that mean"
Would be the question of the day for every sales person involved

Hi all,

Power factor for the PD series is 0.7. My 30 amp draws 743 watts when running as hard as it can. Voltage doesn't get to 14.4 for quite a time.

If I were to replace it, I'd get the newer one that is set to 14.8 volts.

13.6 takes at least 168 hours to reach 100% state of charge.

red31 wrote:

BFL13 wrote:

red31 wrote:
Can 13.6v convert all the sulfate back into solution, given days, weeks etc? Do ya have that much time? What about a good stir on occasion?

Is holding 14.4v or more all the way to FULLY charged important? is 4hr enough?

Take a 100 ah batt at 50%, what is the difference in acceptance at 14.4v vs 13.6v, 50%? see question one, is 13.6 enough to FULLY recharge.

According to my bible:

http://www.bestconverter.com/Books_c_67.html

Figure 3-7 shows that acceptance rate of 20 amps at 50% SOC at 13.6v turns into 30 amps at 50% SOC at 14.4v

Mex once tested his WFCO set @ 13.6 and after 3-4 days, sg was still short of original.

This graph I made from a RV.net popup post yrs ago, G27 IIRC, ~60% SoC, note: @60 minutes, the 'smart charger' (xantrax xpower, precursor to Vector then B&D) had averaged almost 20ah and the 35A WFCO 12ah tapering from the start.



to me it said wfco no good for discharged battery.

Was the voltage the same between the smart charger and the WFCO?

BFL13 wrote:

red31 wrote:
Can 13.6v convert all the sulfate back into solution, given days, weeks etc? Do ya have that much time? What about a good stir on occasion?

Is holding 14.4v or more all the way to FULLY charged important? is 4hr enough?

Take a 100 ah batt at 50%, what is the difference in acceptance at 14.4v vs 13.6v, 50%? see question one, is 13.6 enough to FULLY recharge.

According to my bible:

http://www.bestconverter.com/Books_c_67.html

Figure 3-7 shows that acceptance rate of 20 amps at 50% SOC at 13.6v turns into 30 amps at 50% SOC at 14.4v

Mex once tested his WFCO set @ 13.6 and after 3-4 days, sg was still short of original.

This graph I made from a RV.net popup post yrs ago, G27 IIRC, ~60% SoC, note: @60 minutes, the 'smart charger' (xantrax xpower, precursor to Vector then B&D) had averaged almost 20ah and the 35A WFCO 12ah tapering from the start.



to me it said wfco no good for discharged battery.

road-runner wrote:
=The wattage ratings of small generators are a marketing term

Nope. Your arguing with facts. "Watt" is a standard SI unit, not a marketing term. If a generator can't put out the number advertised, they're lying to you. It is that simple.

mike-s wrote:

road-runner wrote:
If the generators were rated in watts, which they aren't

If the OP meant a 1000 VA generator, they should have said a 1000 VA generator. Nope, they said 1000 W generator. QED.

The wattage ratings of small generators are a marketing term that assumes the load has a unity power factor. With rare exceptions the sales and marketing materials state the output rating in watts. Download the owners manuals from Honda, Yamaha, Kipor, and Robing Subaru, and you'll see that all of a sudden the output ratings are in VA. Some of the less-major brands give this correct info in the owners manual, some don't. Uncorrected converters exhibit what's called "distortion power factor", where the power they consume in VA is about 1.43 times what they draw in watts. If you think the math is the same as it is for a DC system, you're simply not aware that there's more to it with AC systems.

Disclosure: I have not verified that every owners manual from the 4 generator manufacturers mentioned above states the output in terms of VA. I have only spot-checked several of each and encountered no exceptions.

red31 wrote:
Can 13.6v convert all the sulfate back into solution, given days, weeks etc? Do ya have that much time? What about a good stir on occasion?

Is holding 14.4v or more all the way to FULLY charged important? is 4hr enough?

Take a 100 ah batt at 50%, what is the difference in acceptance at 14.4v vs 13.6v, 50%? see question one, is 13.6 enough to FULLY recharge.

According to my bible:

http://www.bestconverter.com/Books_c_67.html

Figure 3-7 shows that acceptance rate of 20 amps at 50% SOC at 13.6v turns into 30 amps at 50% SOC at 14.4v

My AGM spec says to recharge at 14.9ish and Float at 13.7ish, so I think they are saying it won't do much good to recharge at 13.7ish--do it at their specified 14.9ish.

LY has shown that you should leave the 14.x on till the batts are full before dropping to your Float voltage.