Charging a Battery Bank
I am planning on upgrading my batteries to 4 6v batteries wired in series and parallel to have a 12v system with plenty of Amp Hours. There is a ton of information on how to wire things up but nothing...
Forum Discussion
The 2 hours of a garage charger What is make model? got a link/photo? raising SG from flat to near full levels would seem to indicate severe stratification. the hydrometer was pulling much less dense acid from cell tops. The garage charger's amperage and its near 16 volts caused enough gassing and perhaps heating that mixed up the electrolyte so it appears that the battery went from near dead to near fully charged in 2 hours, which is impossible unless they are severely capacity compromised.
Your powermax adjustable voltage model, should have been easily able to outperform the garage charger, but I do not see a voltage adjustment potentiometer in your photo. The adjustable voltage model I am familair with has a small voltmeter on the top, next to the potentiometer.
Without it perhaps the 3 or 4 stage automatic unit saw 13.6v from other charging sources and decided to do nothing.
If it was an adjustable voltage model working properly it would seek to bring voltage at output terminals to what it was set at, with its maximum available amperage until that voltage was reached.
it looks to me, from your photo, that you have an automatic 3 or 4 stage powermax, and I do not think these make for a great converter for fast and complete battery charging in a timely manner. I'd only ever consider their adjustable voltage manual models as I do not like their automatic charge algorithms, and would choose a PD92XX-14.8v series converter instead, if I wanted a converter, which I do not.
At least that model through pendant/wizard allows for a manual voltage override.
I take care of several neighbor's batteries on occassion. they usually have these ridiculous chargers on them for 12 hours and expect them to be fully charged. the biggest joke of them is a 12/2 amp manual transformer based Schumacher charger that cannot exceed 4.2 amps and 13.74 volts. What a joke of a charger.
I frequently find SG deep down in the red despite an overnight recharge on the well marketed garage charger, and no longer try and get their chargers to do anything, I instead take out my Meanwell rsp-500-15, set to to 14.8 ish volts and let it go until amps taper to ~1.5% of capacity, dip the hydrometer, and then possibly crank voltage up to as high as 16.2v, if required. No worrying about if it is going to charge or not.
It is single minded in its pursuit of the target voltage I chose before hooking it to the battery, or afterwards, once amps taper and there is little voltage drop on the 8awg DC output.
Nothing worse than a charging source deciding upon a timid target voltage when the batteries are anything but fully charged, or one charging source has still depleted batteries at a high enough voltage that the other charging source decides it does not have to do anything.
Why your powermax did nothing needs to be investigated but other charging sources or surface charge from recently applied charging sources, having battery voltage above 12.8v are the usual culprit.
The two cells which read 1.265, are their electrolyte levels a bit higher than the 1.275 cells? The low cells in the same GC-2?
Your powermax adjustable voltage model, should have been easily able to outperform the garage charger, but I do not see a voltage adjustment potentiometer in your photo. The adjustable voltage model I am familair with has a small voltmeter on the top, next to the potentiometer.
Without it perhaps the 3 or 4 stage automatic unit saw 13.6v from other charging sources and decided to do nothing.
If it was an adjustable voltage model working properly it would seek to bring voltage at output terminals to what it was set at, with its maximum available amperage until that voltage was reached.
it looks to me, from your photo, that you have an automatic 3 or 4 stage powermax, and I do not think these make for a great converter for fast and complete battery charging in a timely manner. I'd only ever consider their adjustable voltage manual models as I do not like their automatic charge algorithms, and would choose a PD92XX-14.8v series converter instead, if I wanted a converter, which I do not.
At least that model through pendant/wizard allows for a manual voltage override.
I take care of several neighbor's batteries on occassion. they usually have these ridiculous chargers on them for 12 hours and expect them to be fully charged. the biggest joke of them is a 12/2 amp manual transformer based Schumacher charger that cannot exceed 4.2 amps and 13.74 volts. What a joke of a charger.
I frequently find SG deep down in the red despite an overnight recharge on the well marketed garage charger, and no longer try and get their chargers to do anything, I instead take out my Meanwell rsp-500-15, set to to 14.8 ish volts and let it go until amps taper to ~1.5% of capacity, dip the hydrometer, and then possibly crank voltage up to as high as 16.2v, if required. No worrying about if it is going to charge or not.
It is single minded in its pursuit of the target voltage I chose before hooking it to the battery, or afterwards, once amps taper and there is little voltage drop on the 8awg DC output.
Nothing worse than a charging source deciding upon a timid target voltage when the batteries are anything but fully charged, or one charging source has still depleted batteries at a high enough voltage that the other charging source decides it does not have to do anything.
Why your powermax did nothing needs to be investigated but other charging sources or surface charge from recently applied charging sources, having battery voltage above 12.8v are the usual culprit.
The two cells which read 1.265, are their electrolyte levels a bit higher than the 1.275 cells? The low cells in the same GC-2?
