On 2/1/2013 11:38 AM, SLPinfo.org wrote:
Chuck
Thanks for that. I too am actually considering going to one of these with
my lead pack at some point. I worry about how long my current charger will
last (I bought it used and have been running it daily for almost 3 years).
I'm probably pushing it too hard which will likely shorten its life - it's
rated for up to 150 AH batts and mine are 170 AH.
You could keep your old charger as a backup. It's nice to have a backup
in case something goes wrong with your "production" charger. This is
another reason why I was considering the Elcon - I would then keep the
Zivan as a backup. I've had two charger failures in my EV career: one
with the K&W BC-20 and the other with the Zivan. I had other ways to
charge. I think in each failure, I used a variac/rectifier and limped
along for a week or two.
If what you mean by pushing the charger hard is cranking the bulk
charger current up to handle the larger batteries, yes, that creates
extra heat and stress on the charger components. But I don't think
charging larger batteries in and of itself makes a difference, except
maybe longer charge times if the bulk charge current is the same.
The "gases a lot" comment may be sort of relative. With my current charger
when it's in the last phase (the final 20%) I can definitely smell the
gassing (I run a fan in my garage to vent air out the window just in case).
But my understanding is that with floodies this is what you want to get a
proper charge and prevent sulfation. It would be good to know if that
person has experienced the amount of gassing produced by other chargers?
In other words is "a normal amount of gassing" which this person just
thinks is excessive, or is it "more than you'd see with other chargers"?
If it's the latter perhaps the charge endpoint on the algorithm is set too
high.
I suspect that Elcon has dialed in the recommendations from USBattery as
best they can (ie. they probably can't fill the C/10 bulk charge
recommendation). If that's the case, then as the batteries age, they
will have a harder and harder time achieving the constant-voltage
setpoint. If I recall, USBattery recommends 2.58Vpc (volts/cell) at 77
degF. With my pack of 96V, that's ~124V, easily attained by new-ish
batteries at maybe an amp, but with 2-3 year old batteries it will be
harder, especially if the pack is starting to get out of balance, etc.
Old batteries, forget it.
I have an email going to the person that described the gassing, so maybe
we will learn more.
The comment about it running hot at 120V is especially interesting (not
sure what your "hmmm" comment means btw). I currently use a Quick Charge
Select-A-Charge which weighs in at 42 lbs and does get quite hot. I
actually added a small external AC fan next to it that comes on during
charging - not sure if it's really necessary, but I didn't want to take any
chances. The "hot" comment suggests that while I might gain some weight I
probably should keep the fan.
"Hmmm" means I'm skeptical about how the fan is wired up. All it is is
probably the fan is running at half speed, a 240V fan running on 120V.
But this provides less cooling to the charger when running on 120V, so
the charger runs hot. The amperage the charger is handling is more or
less the same between 120 and 240V, if I recall.
There have been other cases of 240V chargers having problems on 120V,
the Solectria Force charger being a case in point. I'm not sure I ever
heard exactly what the cause of that was, but wouldn't be surprised if
it's the same ol' fan issue.
Cool electronics = happy electronics, and gives you more headroom on hot
days when you have to charge your car under the sun.
While I think of it, will these chargers allow you to do a regular
"equalization" charge (i.e., run two charge cycles back to back)? Or will
the charger just notice full charge the second time and shut off right
away? My current charger can be set so it will quickly charge up to 80%
and then just repeats the last phase for 3 hours. I do that monthly.
There seem to be many different ways to equalize batteries. With the
Zivan K2, I can adjust it so that it will hold a constant 6A DC (I use
6A as that is a number that Roger Stockton suggested at one time, while
the USBattery suggestion is/was 11A, or so somebody mentioned - I
probably could not hold a constant 11A with new-ish batteries (although
I've never tried, and it would be pushing the charger very hard I
suspect)). I just run at 6A for a minimum of 2h or until the pack
voltage starts to roll-over, whichever occurs later. I'm aiming to
fully charge all the cells this way, but of course, if one is far enough
behind, it won't top out, and I won't know it at this high level. I'll
find out when I next take my hydrometer readings or I zorch the cell.
I don't know what your charger does in a regular charge cycle. If it's
IU, then probably it will ramp down pretty quickly while holding the
constant voltage for three hours on that second charge, which I suppose
would be one way to equalize a pack.
- Peter Flipsen Jr
On Thu, Jan 31, 2013 at 1:57 PM, Chuck Hursch<[email protected]> wrote:
I just wanted to throw out the feedback I got. Basically people seemed to
feel that it was a plug it in and forget it type of charger - it does the
job. One person said the finishing charge seemed to gas the hell out of
his batteries; he just kills the charger early if he's available to do so.
And perhaps most interestingly, someone said that the charger seemed to
run rather hot at 120V with a slow-running fan, cooler at 240V with the fan
running faster - hmmm...
Chuck
On 1/28/2013 2:40 PM, Chuck Hursch wrote:
Hi Peter,
Thanks for the pointer. I sent some queries.
Chuck
On 1/26/2013 10:01 PM, SLPinfo.org wrote:
Chuck,
Have you searched the evalbum yet? A quick search under the category
"battery brand" yielded 160 hits for Elcon. By looking at the first
couple
of pages I found the following folks who are running Elcons with lead
acid
batts. There are very likely to be more. Hopefully you can find a few
with
significant experience.
http://www.evalbum.com/4339
http://www.evalbum.com/4290
http://www.evalbum.com/4176
http://www.evalbum.com/4168
http://www.evalbum.com/4046
http://www.evalbum.com/4030
http://www.evalbum.com/3984
- Peter Flipsen Jr
[snip]
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