Battery charger with equalization

Man I gotta cure those mega mental lapses that consume gigabytes of server space.

My big drawback is that I am crabby. When I get to the point where I am too lazy to spend 10-minutes a week with my batteries then it's time to unplug everything including myself.

The informed human brain, hydrometer and amp hour meter is perhaps equal to a Cray supercomputer and two hundred thousand dollars worth of sensors.

Yeah right, a seventy nine chip can deduce a hunch that something is amiss.

I never forget a lead acid battery is a chemical laboratory in which electricity is a curious by-product...

I am forced by reality to do nothing more or less what the remainder of humanity must do when dealing with batteries. Sure I have degrees up the kazoo. But the science is called "Discipline" for a reason. A mistreated battery will sulfate on me just as fast as it would for a burger flipper in Peoria.

Hi,

Even 30 watts can over charge an 85 amp-hour battery, if it is left connected without a controller between it and the battery.

The vector is a good start--but it will not complete the task. For that I'd suggest the 100 watt panel direct connected to a single battery. Monitor voltage and temperature. Aim at 16 volts. Do not exceed 49 C in temperature.

When you have completed treating the batteries, wait 24 hours and check the specific gravity.

DAS26miles wrote:
I have a Vector 10/20/40amp charger that has a desulfation phase that lasts 24 hours. I am going to take both batteries out and run each thru the cycle then.
Darn spell check keeps making it desolation.
I bought another panel from Renogy to supplement the 100watts. It's a 30 watt with no controller. Made to connect directly to the batteries I guess.

Mexicowanderer is THE lead acid battery guru on this site. He's binderedundat. For many many decades! :B

Here is the link to his dissertation on Equalization and "Top Charging".

Read it and follow it.

MW: Well received by our ham radio club. Thanks.

There is no such thing as smart chargers for doing an equalization charge. Not with lawyers involved.

So don't even bother to entertain the notion that it is possible. It requires manual chargers and manual measurements.

5% of 75 amp hours is 3.75 amps. You need around 3.75 -4.5 amps at 16.0V for your 75 amp hour intestate group 24 batteries.

You need to get a specific gravity reading of 1.275 or better on all 6 cells, or 16.0V at the terminals, which ever happens first, then discontinue charging. This requires constant monitoring every 5 minutes the first time you do this, to see which occurs first, with a good SG gauge and a good Digital Multi meter to take samples.

One group 24 battery at a time.

Interstate is a battery peddler. Among the entire sales force they do not own one engineer. Nada. Zero. Information`except for price, availability and BCI group size is to be regarded with no small degree of skepticism. Fifteen point three volts is inappropriate for a 2.75% antimony lead acid battery.

Equalization is a reactive FORMULA.

Gee if Add a couple extra eggs and bake this cake at 185 degrees for six hours, it otter turn out as good as the 3-egg 350 degrees for 35-minutes recipe. Sulfation is not the easiest thing to remove when it starts to lattice. In fact you never get it all. 99.4% one time, 99.88% the next and the longer the sulfation cures on the plate the harder it is to remove.

If you've got money to burn then so be it. If you want to remove sulfation the best possible way, energy, time and effort wise, pay attention to the BCI formula

Present 5% of rated amp hour current across the cell. Continue until a) sulfate is driven back into solution (acid density rises to original level) Or b) 16.0 volts is reached.

Higher voltage will burn innocent plates, and lower voltage will take forever to never to remove sulfates. The more extreme the deviated values are, the more extreme the consequences.

Interstate wants to sell batteries. They are not going to tell customers reality about equalization, because no charger on the face of the earth can plug and pay the recipe. "Oh but Mr. Interstate, a Snodgrass Platinum ad says 13.5 volts works. I'll choose the Snodgrass Platinum" Ya think maybe the boys that grab the dollars at Interstate would stand for heresy in the P&L column?

Mild sulfation can be removed with mild efforts. But a person does not purchase a cyclable battery to cycle it 20% then immediately recharge it 100%. batteries that leap from power post to power post do not have this issue.

Among others, some OEMs that I trust are Rolls, Trojan, Crown, and Exide industrial. Johnson Controls, Interstate, Sears, and GNB have a spotty history, US Battery is so-so; I've caught them in one too many fundamental technical screwups. Management is responsible for the wogs. An applications engineer who spouts blather gets a boot in my book. They aren't engineers. They are educated salesmen.

"Officer officer you caught me doing 95. The reason, is this road is dangerous and I wanted to spend as little time driving on it as possible"

Salesmen want to be different. To them a "ME TOO" environment is worse than being sent to hades. They need an edge. They itch for a niche, a foothold. So they become unbelievably creative. Heavy on the word unbelievable. When I used to bite these people in the ass I was one really unpopular individual. The engineers at Trojan used to call me a "---- disturber" not because of issues with them but from rumors of my feeding on the competition's corporate salesmen bleeding wounds.

As far as I am concerned it should be mandatory to provide the customer with...

a) weight
b

Interstate does not possess a genuine engineer. They hire (subcontract) one but mainly rely on the manufacturer's engineering employees. Interstate's advertising and promotional division has the reins of the company and are answerable to folks who manipulate spreadsheets for the money men.

"Me Too" is a vile obscenity to resellers. Fits right behind "Here comes a truck with pallets of warranted failures"

15.3 vdc for equalization is valid at 106F electrolyte temperature.

Course a feller could bake a cake at 185F for six hours and call it "Done!"

\\\\ exaggerators.

I have a Vector 10/20/40amp charger that has a desulfation phase that lasts 24 hours. I am going to take both batteries out and run each thru the cycle then.
Darn spell check keeps making it desolation.
I bought another panel from Renogy to supplement the 100watts. It's a 30 watt with no controller. Made to connect directly to the batteries I guess.

Hi Das,

You can get to 16 volts by direct connecting the panel to the battery bank. You would need a volt meter to monitor the process. A thermal gun to monitor temperature should be used. Stop the process before 16 volts if the battery hits 49 C (120 f).

Interstate is not dealing with a badly sulphated battery. You are.

pianotuna, the solar panel output Vmp is 18.5v
max boost is 15v and equalization is 15.2v
Interstate says 14.7v boost and 15.3v equalize.

Truecharge 2, Victron, Mastervolt or BatteryTender high frequency charger.
Otherwise what is wrong with the solar?

What is the output voltage on the solar panel?