upgrading power converter
My power converter has apparently bit the dust, lights flickering for past couple of years now no charge to batteries... Anyhoo, we do a lot of dry camping, where we need to daily boost the batteries...
Forum Discussion
BFL13 wrote:NinerBikes wrote:
OK,
Small scale here.... A T1275 Trojan. Rated 150 AH... at 50% SOC, paired with a PD9245, with 6 feet of 8 gauge wire to the lugs on the battery terminal.
Who here would care to estimate charging time to a 90% SOC, or time it takes to get to 14.4V and bump the wizard out of bulk mode and into absorption mode, and time to put the battery instead on a 120W 7 Amp PWM bulk 15.0V portable solar panel?
Should I go to a heavier gauge wire from the PD 9245 to the battery? Voltage loss?
OK but first of all, did you get another T-1275 that works? ISTR you got one or two used ones for free but they were duds.
also can't answer any of those questions without knowing what amps you get at first starting at 50%. After that it is easy--it is all in the ugly graph. Everything is proportional so just use 150 instead of 220
I did some serious sessions of Equalizing, the proper MexicanWanderer way, seasoned them a little, and one of them came back nicely within 10 points of all the other cells at 1.270, the rest 1.280. Not perfect, but good enough for a couple more years of what I have planned for it. Actual use in May or June on a longer trip will be more telling, but my gut feel is that with a Pd 9245 for an hour in the morning, and the close to 7 amp solar panel I have with bulk V set at 15.1V, so as to not fry any refrig circuit boards, I should be golden. My daily usage, maximum, I don't see as perhaps ever being over 50 or 60 amps, well maybe if I run the fan on the heater, but even then... I'd prefer a radiant ceramic lpg heater, like RJ has, no motor required.
Ideally, I'd to just only have to run the gen on cloudy days, or for the microwave. Keep in mind, 21 feet, and one person in it doing the conservation thing goes a long ways to keeping the power consumption down. Just want to be able to do the solar thing only too, come winter time with short days.
Less expensive to have a solar panel walk away than a honda generator, if I'm going to have to take a loss. Don't want permanent, don't know how long I will keep the 21 footer I have.
