Top Charge Question

joelmyer wrote:

mena661 wrote:

NinerBikes wrote:
You should see 1.275 or better, for all cells.

X2

x3

That's what USB says. That's where I want to go.

Got involved with chili dogs, conversation and adult beverages last night. Today is advertised as partly cloudy with a high of 72. We haven't seen a totally clear day for about 10 days now. But it looks just a little hazy now at 8AM. So hopefully solar will get me up to near full and the MegaWatt tonight will get one bank on the road to specific gravity happiness.

To answer NinerBikes questions:

Trimetric is a meter, it measures the voltage at the battery as well as net amps into/out of the battery and amp hours from full.

The morning I unplugged, I reset the AH from full to zero and have reset it several times when it got to more than +20 AH. The AH from full was the basics for my top 10% SOC statement. Obviously there is more going on. USB says charge inefficiency can be 5% to 50%. MEX posted a link to a paper that suggested it can be 100% in the top 10% of charge. TriMetric defaults to 5%.

TriMetric

EcoWorthy is set to 14.8/14.4. I have rarely seen 14+ volts but I don't sit inside & watch volts. Mostly I monitor amps which I have seen as high as 11 amps (that's net as measured by the Trimetric).

US Battery recommends 14.4 bulk, 14.4 absorption, 15.3 top charge and 15.3 equalization.

Late breaking news: At 8:22 Mr Sun is putting more into the batteries than is being used.

Joel

Joel

Set your trimetric for 15.3 volts. Run it there for 2 or 3 full sunny days in a row. Measure your SG at 3 or 4 PM at the end of each of those days. If your SG is at or above 1.275, your work is done. If not, it's going to take heavy duty 16.0V to get a true equalize charge, not just a "top" charge, to get the plates desulfated.

Do a search here on "Equalize charging", with Mexicowander as the author. It's been discussed many, many times, how to do an equalize charge.