11 Fixed Voltage Settings For a 130 Ampere Charger

[MEXICOWANDERER]

This is meant to be fun and not a challenge 🙂 And the issue is not theoretical...

Here we have a mean mean Meanwell RSP charger that has a max potential of 130 amperes.

And the user cannot or does not want potentiometer voltage settings.

Click - Click - Click - Click. A single deck 11 contact Electro Switch

A battery charger NOT a converter. For use with a generator

At latitudes higher than 45 degrees

And a six hour wind-up timer

For flooded and AGM batteries

11 settings to program. There are no "right" or "wrong" answers

Consider it a compliment to commenters that I am posting this for your comments. Smart people learn and my reception is wide open. The resistor circuit is not finished.

This deals with voltage not resistors. And remember there is an infinitely adjustable wind up timer involved.

What say you?

As a guideline I cannot imagine this charger being used at temps lower than 0F or higher than 85F

Don't be afraid this is not some kind of "test"

[jharrell]

Magnum also can do a "Equalizing" charge by holding down the charge button for 5 seconds where constant voltage is held for 4 hours. It defaults to 15.6V but again can be setup as high as 16V.

This equalizing mode is basically exactly what Lifeline recommends for a "conditioning" charge to be done about once a month.

Magnum seems to like Lifeline batteries as their AGM1 charge profile is specifically for Lifeline and the Equalizing charge is preset to Lifelines recommendation.

For a deep recovery procedure on a Lifeline running up to 18V and causing it to off gas I would probably want to use a manual CC power supply that can get to proper voltage and amps for such an extreme procedure.

[time2roll]

You can control (make constant) current or voltage into the battery, not both.

I do have a constant current power supply but max is about 3 amps. And eventually it would hit the max volts of about 30.

[MEXICOWANDERER]

If you can dial in a constant current of say 5.0 amps which will shut off when voltage reaches 16.0 volts this is the protocol to equalize a group 27 or group 31 flooded battery. 11-amps constant current for a pair of GC-220 golf car batteries.

[jharrell]

Can you set the inverter to produce say 20 amps constant current until voltage rises to say 16 volts. How about 20 volts. Or 10 volts? A constant current producing device is graded by the voltage limit that the device is capable of producing.

The Magnum can be set for constant current from 20 - 990 ADC of course limited by charger capacity which in my case is 125 amps. It can be set to transition to constant voltage from 12-16V.

The Lifeline recovery section denotes a constant current of 5% of 24 rated capacity applied until cell V reaches 2.58, then held for 4 hours more. The Magnum could do this if manually monitored except for they say the cell may reach 3V which would be 18V and the Magnum can only do 16V.

There are many more details to the Magnum charge settings that are explained throughly here starting page 20: http://www.magnum-dimensions.com/sites/default/files/manuals/owners/64-0003-Rev-G-ME-RC_Web.pdf

[MEXICOWANDERER]

Read the part about

Meticulously Supervised again

And not have the two words CONSTANT CURRENT act as a trip wire

CONTROL is the name of the game and describing the condition of the charging with a modifying with the caveat UNTIL should serve as a key descriptor.

Read further in that manual. You will come to APPLY CONSTANT CURRENT in the Lifeline section entitled RECOVERY.

So CONSTANT CURRENT is only used to DESCRIBE what is happening during battery charging event. UNCHANGING CURRENT would be a better description.

It is at the moment when unchanging current does indeed change and starts reducing is the same moment when BULK charging is referred to as ABSORBSION charging.

Please tell me using these two descriptions how this affects YOU personally while the battery is charging. THE CURRENT IS CONSTANT is a hell of a lot different than CONSTANT CURRENT which implies NO CONTROL.

The damage of mis applied wording confuses the layman. I have dealt with

"But but but this charger says it applies CONSTANT CURRENT" with regards to equalization or AGM conditioning or recovery. How CONSTANT CURRENT is used makes all the difference in the world.

Care to make comprehension of battery management even more difficult, then use the term CONSTANT CURRENT instead of WHEN CURRENT IS CONSTANT.

The very fact that I need to create a caveat here is testimony to the confusion.

Battery charging is done with control of voltage

Battery recovery is done with control of amperage -- and is meticulously supervised.

This is a question about your inverter control...

Can you set the inverter to produce say 20 amps constant current until voltage rises to say 16 volts. How about 20 volts. Or 10 volts? A constant current producing device is graded by the voltage limit that the device is capable of producing. My constant current device can produce 1 amperes up to near 80 amperes. With a voltage limit of around 180. It weighs almost 400 lbs and is three phase which I have not had available to me for almost 30 years.

No converter nor battery charger can be referred to as a CONSTANT CURRENT DEVICE

[MEXICOWANDERER]

Read the part about

Meticulously Supervised again

And not have the two words CONSTANT CURRENT act as a trip wire

CONTROL is the name of the game and describing the condition of the charging with a modifying with the caveat UNTIL should serve as a key descriptor.

Read further in that manual. You will come to APPLY CONSTANT CURRENT in the Lifeline section entitled RECOVERY.

So CONSTANT CURRENT is only used to DESCRIBE what is happening during battery charging event. UNCHANGING CURRENT would be a better description.

It is at the moment when unchanging current does indeed change and starts reducing is the same moment when BULK charging is referred to as ABSORBSION charging.

Please tell me using these two descriptions how this affects YOU personally while the battery is charging. THE CURRENT IS CONSTANT is a hell of a lot different than CONSTANT CURRENT which implies NO CONTROL.

The damage of mis applied wording confuses the layman. I have dealt with

"But but but this charger says it applies CONSTANT CURRENT" with regards to equalization or AGM conditioning or recovery. How CONSTANT CURRENT is used makes all the difference in the world.

Care to make comprehension of battery management even more difficult, then use the term CONSTANT CURRENT instead of WHEN CURRENT IS CONSTANT.

The very fact that I need to create a caveat here is testimony to the confusion.

Battery charging is done with control of voltage

Battery recovery is done with control of amperage -- and is meticulously supervised.

This is a question about your inverter control...

Can you set the inverter to produce say 20 amps constant current until voltage rises to say 16 volts. How about 20 volts. Or 10 volts?

[jharrell]

MEXICOWANDERER wrote:
Sure as Hell, CONSTANT CURRENT CHARGING will hurt a battery. Constant current is only done under meticulously supervised conditions to rectify damage caused by an incorrectly applied recharging period in which the batteries are abused by undercharging. To wit...

Read the LIFELINE manual about RECOVERY

Maybe we are all speaking different terminology but right from the Lifeline tech manual on charging:

The recommended method of charging Lifeline® AGM batteries is to use a 3 stage charging
profile. In the first stage, a constant current is applied until the voltage reaches a pre-set limit.
The first stage is often called the Bulk charging stage.

In the second stage, the voltage is held constant at the same pre-set limit until the charging
current tapers to a very low value, at which point the battery is fully charged. The second stage
is often called the Absorption charging stage. A voltage setting of 14.3 volts ± 0.1 volts (7.15 ±
0.05 volt for a 6 volt battery) should be used when the battery temperature is 77°F (25°C). The
battery is considered to be fully charged when the current drops below 0.5% of the battery’s
rated capacity (0.5A for a 100Ah battery). The absorption stage will typically last 2 – 4 hours
before the current reaches this level.

In the third stage, the charging voltage is reduced to a lower value that minimizes the amount of
overcharge, while maintaining the battery at 100% state of charge. This third stage is often
called the Float charging stage. A float voltage of 13.3 ± 0.1 volts (6.65 ± 0.05 volts for a 6 volt
battery) should be used when the battery temperature is 77°F (25°C).

My Magnum does this and I posted previously a charging test showing amp and volts from 49% to float:

Time Inverter-V BMK-V BMK-Ah BMK-SOC Inverter-A BMK-A BMK-T
9:50am 12.5v 12.70v -5Ah 97%
7:35pm 12.2v 12.32v -113Ah 49%
7:37pm 13.5v 13.44v -110Ah 50% 125A 104.0A 77F Bulk
7:52pm 13.8v 13.79v -87Ah 60% 125A 105.6A 82F
8:00pm 14.1v 14.08v -73Ah 67% 125A 105.2A 86F Absorb
8:04pm 14.1v 14.14v -66Ah 70% 111A 95.8A 88F
8:12pm 14.1v 14.18v -55Ah 75% 85A 77.2A 88F
8:22pm 14.1v 14.20v -44Ah 80% 70A 60.8A 88F
8:34pm 14.1v 14.22v -34Ah 85% 51A 45.8A 86F
9:06pm 14.2v 14.32v -15Ah 93% 30A 25.8A 84F
9:25pm 14.2v 14.36v -8Ah 96% 20A 17.2A 82F
9:45pm 14.2v 14.34v -4Ah 98% 15A 11.2A 82F
10:23pm Float

Every multistage charger I have seen does this, bulk is constant current, putting out the max current of the charger or some lower setting if trying to limit draw, the voltage slowly rises until the absorb voltage setting is hit, then it switches to constant voltage until time or amps or soc is reached depending on charger and settings, my Magnum can do any of those.

[MEXICOWANDERER]

• Of course generators require more fuel the greater the load
• And they wear out slightly faster when loaded
• THIMK! What is one of the biggest assets of an inverter generator?
• They slow to meet the load demand
• Unloaded the Kubota uses about .65 gallon per hour. Two dollars and change
• Pistons go up and down oil gets dirtier as the engine runs. Eleven quarts of Delo 400 and 2 oil filters are not cheap
• Including turbo and fuel system an "in frame" costs $5,500. My pickup can only haul four drums of diesel. Maybe 208 gallons max. The nearest gasolinera is about a 38 mile round trip.
• Fuel, runtime, total storage, how does all this fit into a serious outage of 10 days?
• Idon't even want to think about the thirty thousand dollars to replace the batteries
• They are on their 22nd year. Mind you they are NOT off grid merely there for frequent and not infrequent prolonged outages. When power is out and the weather is miserable the generator may run ten hours a day. 24/7 the batteries have 1 1,300 watt refrigeration burden to bear plus a 5K A/C unit that will be on 24 hours a day. A 100 Mhz 4 trace storage Tektronix oscilloscope and 6.5 digit bench meter do not say "oh sugar" when subjected to condensing humidity
• So, I am subjected to an amplification of generator battery charging run time. And it is all serious money at best and in my case critical
• I have measured, crunched numbers, re-measured and gone up one side and down the other
• Saturated voltage charging just beats the snot out of any other protocol. Especially when done with AGM batteries
• My pair of Lifelines came to the same agreement. When I find a used 8.5 HP (hopefully) Honda engine I am going to fit an LHA load handler 160 amp alternator belt driven to handle the Lifelines
• I am still suspicious about Trojan's 14.8 volts unless they are a carbon AGM

[full_mosey]

What really matters is looking at charging from the battery's POV. A while ago, I ran across the term 'Amp hour law' in relation to charging batteries.

As I understand it, there is an optimal charge current that gives a balance between speed and battery life. The basis is that this charging current should equal the Amps missing from the bank throughout charging. Amps will always taper.

When we discuss charging from the charger's POV, we need to know our charging goal; speed v.s. battery life.

I am not aware of a charger that KNOWS the missing amps, so we don't know if we are charging fast or slow. Enter the battery 'fuel gauge'.

Battery mfgrs give us a clue when they publish Volt and Amp limits. Some also publish temperature charts for Voltage regulation. So long as we stay close to these limits we should be safe.

Charger mfgrs use all sorts of magic smoke algorithms and their manuals are full of legalese and marketing mumble-speak. Do they do what the battery wants? Some here prefer to use manual controls.

Try to focus on what the battery wants. I believe this is what Mex is doing. Perhaps this is saturation charging.

IMHO, YMMV, and HTH;
John

[MEXICOWANDERER]

BFL my 24 volt bank charged to 50% capacity and saturation charging at 720 amperes 29.20 volts are the charger bussbars 29.14 volts at the battery posts

BFL Group 31 XT Lifeline 14.41 at the BORG with 14.38 at the Lifeline copper posts. 88 amperes.

This is what saturation charging is all about

BFL 28.1 volts at the Niehoff alternator on Quicksilver. 27.7 at the L16 battery posts. Forgot the amperage number it was north of 200 amperes.

[pnichols]

The purpose of local sensing at the terminals (the charger's voltage-control circuit's feedback loop sense point) that I'm talking about is for the charger to maintain right on the battery's terminals whatever voltage is automatically or manually set at the charger.

The battery's "intrinsic" voltage will eventually rise to match this voltage value as the battery charges -> as long as the charger remains turned on and set at this voltage value.

The caveat is ... the charger will have to supply as much current as the battery wants all along as this process proceeds ... which may require a charger with a large current capacity.

This is what "constant voltage - infinite current" charging is ... which is the fastest way to charge if you have the equipment to support it.

[full_mosey]

BFL13 wrote:
...

And--Anybody who thinks you can have constant voltage at the battery terminals while the battery voltage is constantly rising must be bonkers IMO.

Nobody it thinking that Volts can be constant at both ends.

But how about the idea of constant Voltage from the battery's POV. In this case, the charger's sense is watching the Voltage at the battery terminals. Let's say the current is enough that the charger actually supplies an extra 1V so that 14.4 arrives at the battery. IOW the transition from bulk to abs occurs at 15.4V at the chargers end. Perhaps this is due to smaller wiring or extra distance.

Now when you monitor Abs, the Charger's Voltage decreases DOWN to the battery's CONSTANT 14.4V as a result of decreasing Amps.

That is my understanding of the purpose of the sense as described by Morningstar. If you disagree, I will be happy to email them for clarification.

HTH;
John

[MEXICOWANDERER]

Sure as Hell, CONSTANT CURRENT CHARGING will hurt a battery. Constant current is only done under meticulously supervised conditions to rectify damage caused by an incorrectly applied recharging period in which the batteries are abused by undercharging. To wit...

Read the LIFELINE manual about RECOVERY

Read the BCI protocol for flooded lead acid battery equalization.

Constant current 14 batteries in series is how shysters attempt to recover one or two batteries and sell those that survive with a days long return for credit.

Voltage ASSUMES impedance
Current does not

This is why a standard transformer battery charger is now illegal in "California". The idiot worker selects high, sets the timer dial on hold, then sneaks around to the back and rolls a quarter-pounder. When he comes to, he has a hazardous waste site.

[BFL13]

Reading up on "constant voltage charging" and it refers to the voltage at the charger. "Constant current charging" is used for the Bulk stage instead, so the amps don't taper right away and you get faster charging.

"Multi-stage" chargers do both. Constant Current for Bulk and then trip to Constant Voltage for Absorption to protect from overcharging. But battery voltage keeps rising during both stages.

"Constant voltage charging" is slower. (Because amps taper from the start) and is only suitable when the battery is shallow cycled. It is not suitable for deep cycle recharging.

And--Anybody who thinks you can have constant voltage at the battery terminals while the battery voltage is constantly rising must be bonkers IMO.