WFCO Please Describe The Operational Malfunctions

Santa is bringing me a gift. A previously owned 55 model WFCO. The choice has been made for me. I am pleased to no end with this because otherwise I would be standing here with my --- whistling in the wind. The community 1st aid station is going to get the Cheapowatt chargers to power the single group 27 LTH ciclado profundo battery. When I head up the hill to Morelia and Patzcuaro the Cheapowatt charger comes with me, so does the group 31 AGM.

Years ago I tried a WFCO8955 or 45 (don't remember). It was about 12 feet of #6 wire with frame negative. It would not go into boost no matter what I tried. Before I returned it to Randy, I set it up and tested it with about 18" of # 6 wire and it worked as advertised. I traded it back to Randy for a Xantrex XADC that works great. It goes to 14.2 every time it is powered on.

My Powermax boondocker fires up @ 14.8 each & every time. Then senses the batt and adjusts. Love it. Randy recommended it for my off grid use & it works flawlessly with 2 GC2's.

MEXICOWANDERER wrote:
Thanks!
Every post means I get a better handle of what's not going on. Again, the unit is going to be connected with 18" lengths of soldered terminals 4AWG cable.

with that hookup your going a long ways towards having the WFCO act like you want. The only question is at what level of discharge do the battery(s) have a low enough internal resistance that when the WFCO tries to dump 50A into it the terminal voltage stays down below the WFCO threshold so it stays in bulk mode instead of dropping back to 13.6V.

Most TT hookups (a) don't use 4AWG, more like #8 and (b) have way longer than 18" to the battery, 18 FT is more likely.

Thanks!
Every post means I get a better handle of what's not going on. Again, the unit is going to be connected with 18" lengths of soldered terminals 4AWG cable.

Mex,

Happy Birthday.

My WFCO 9855 "pendant" is bulky but it works.

I found I can use a battery load tester to keep the voltage low at the WFCO 9855 terminals when I power it on and get it to go into bulk mode (14.4V).

The links below show how I do it. Crude but effective.

how I get m WFCO 9855 into boost mode whenever I want.

And here are the details of how I do it.

Ed

My WFCO 55 amp does work like the manual...

Starts at 13.6, 72 hrs later 13.2 volts, then every 25(?) hours checks for voltage and may go to 14.4 for 1 hour depending what the voltage drops to when it turns the charging off for a few minutes during the test to check voltage. Then the 25(?) hour cycle repeats.

The only time I have been able to get it to go straight to 14.4 volts, was by placing a 60 amp batter tester on the converter terminals as an experiment,, then turning on the power to the converter with the load in place to make it see the low voltage to trigger the 14.4 mode.

So yes, the problem is it is reading voltage at the converter not the battery

BEAUTIFUL. But sadly 17 Oct is almost two weeks after I must return. DANGIT! Thank you. it'll be ordered and sit at a UPS store for months perhaps longer than a year before I can get my hands on it. One thousand eight hundred miles each way to pick up mail. 400% duty if I have it shipped to Lazaro Cardenas, Michoacan.

My main responsibility is to not damage or degrade a three hundred fifty dollar battery. It's use is medical and I have one shot to get things right. I will not be able to tell as I go along. AGM is definitely seat-of-the-pants management. I do not trust WFCO or anyone else's device to get it right. All I can do is establish initial trends-and-tendencies with regard to voltage and amperage and from that point on beware of deviant behavior. The battery is not just going to sit there and grin at me feeding on 13.2 volts float. The power goes off for so long and so frequently (sometimes in the middle of the night) I am damned near thinking about getting a digital hour meter and verified elapsed time nightly against time spent asleep. I have no other way of knowing the battery has been cycled. Three hours elapsed time versus perhaps 10 hours clock time is a great clue.

I can live with four hours at 14.4 manually dictated. What I cannot live with is a deviance from the 13.2 volt float value. The machine in that regard has to be utterly reliable. Yes there can be a Battery Tender substituted, and from there the maintenance device morphs into a nightmare. There is going to be a 12 volt circuit for LED lighting so I do not do a two-and-a-half-gainer on the way to the bathroom at 0300. I decided there is no way I am going to try and feed the WFCO with trace MSW power. The generator shed is 150' away (diesel exhaust avoidance), and the AGM will only be fed diesel fuel when there is no other way.

Living on a Devil's Island budget keeps me hopping. Within the last thirty days the clouds parted a hand descended and pointed a golden finger at me. A floodtide of electronic parts is waiting at my PO box. Heaven sent. No more sitting around and chewing my lower lip. Most of the toys I used to have on a bench are going to be present and accounted for.

BTW might as well fess up. Today's my birthday...

Mex - I vaguely remember you mentioning unreliable AC power. My experience with PD converters is that they need a good 120 volt or higher sine wave to achieve their rated output. So if you don't have that and want, say 60 amps, I'd recommend going to the 80 amp converter. Just the opposite, the wfco converters I've had will supply their rated current at 14.4 volts with marginal power. I can't be more specific other than it can be below 120 volts and/or have a crappy waveform. The wfco power section with the pd's push button would be a nice combination, somewhat analogous to the thinking that an ideal pickup would be a Ford body, Dodge engine, and GM Allison transmission.

For a kWh meter, I'm assuming you mean on the DC end. A battery monitor would of course be nice. How about this for a lower cost alternative? DC 5-40V 0-100A Volt Amp Ah Power Combo Meter Charge Discharge Battery Monitor

Another alternative would be a pd converter with fully variable voltage output. There was a post a few years ago on how to accomplish that with a 91xx series converter, substituting a homebrew circuit for the charge wizard.

Mex, getting a WFCO for free is one thing, we know they don't go into bulk mode, but trying to use one to deal with an expensive AGM battery in bulk mode that has to have a set life of 4 years and not lose 10% charge capacity... I don't know... It sounds like it would be easier to get someone to donate you a used PD 9255 deck mount, and have a sure thing instead, that with pendant, WILL give you 14.4V right out of the box. JMHO... We know your butt is running out of peso's to squeeze