Scott, Appreciate the input. Trojan recommends 17-22 amps (10-13% of C) which is consistent with your Lester manual so I'm fast coming to the same conclusion that I need to get up to 220v charging soon. But I don't have that in my garage and we're moving soon so I'm not about to invest in a rewiring job.
I probably will try to limp along at 110v until after the move and then get new batteries and,set up for 220v at the same time. Although 450-500 cycles is clearly low even for a lead acid pack it's considerably better than the 175 I got from the 12v batts I had in my previous EV http://www.evalbum.com/1974 so I'm not complaining. Hopefully I'll do better with the next pack by charging at 220v. -Peter On Jul 11, 2013 10:31 PM, "85VWCabrioletEV" <[email protected]> wrote: > > >Hi folks, > > >My Quick Charge Select-A-Charge charger is getting old as are my lead acid > >batteries in my S-10 http://www.evalbum.com/3739. I've been using them > for > >about 2 years and have about 450 cycles on them. > > >For the past several weeds the charger never seems to get up to the target > >voltage. The display seems to get stuck at about 55-60% (varies a little > >from one day to the next) and then it just times out after about 11 hours. > >Using my DVM it looks like it's hitting about 135V or so which is quite > low > >for my 120V pack. Clearly I'm undercharging my batteries. I sort of knew > >this would happen as I bought the charger used and it's only rated for > >batteries up to 150 AH and mine are 170 AH Trojan T-875s. It also only > >puts out 10 amps at 110V so I may have been undercharging since day 1. > > Hi Peter, > i am no expert on the subject, but when I recently purchased my 85 VW > Cabriolet conversion, it came with an old Lester Electronics off board > charger that has both 110vac and 220vac input. The Lester charger is a > 120v > charger which matches the 120v Flooded Lead Acid traction pack in my VW > Cabriolet (20 New - US Battery US-125 xc2 6v batteries rated at 242ah). My > Lester also only outputs 10 amps at 110vac and jumps to approximately 24 > amps initial output at 220vac. The Lester manual specifically states to > use > the 110vac input only for emergency charging, and that continued charging > at > 110vac would result in under charging of the battery pack. Therefore I > believe you may indeed have been undercharging since day 1. > > US Battery recommends initial bulk charge at 10% of rated amp hours, or in > my case approximately 24.2 amps which is what I get with the 220vac input. > I would expect the trojan battery algorythm to be similar. My DVM > typically > reads between 157v and 159v just prior to the Lester Charger shutting > itself > off. > > I cant answer your question on how to wire your new Elcon to accept 220vac > input, but you may want to consider upgrading to the 220vac sooner than > later..... especially if you end up purchasing new batteries. > > Goodluck, > Scott > > > > > > -- > View this message in context: > http://electric-vehicle-discussion-list.413529.n4.nabble.com/using-dual-voltage-charger-tp4664138p4664169.html > Sent from the Electric Vehicle Discussion List mailing list archive at > Nabble.com. > _______________________________________________ > UNSUBSCRIBE: http://www.evdl.org/help/index.html#usub > http://lists.evdl.org/listinfo.cgi/ev-evdl.org > For EV drag racing discussion, please use NEDRA ( > http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NEDRA) > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://lists.evdl.org/private.cgi/ev-evdl.org/attachments/20130712/cef6b49c/attachment.htm> _______________________________________________ UNSUBSCRIBE: http://www.evdl.org/help/index.html#usub http://lists.evdl.org/listinfo.cgi/ev-evdl.org For EV drag racing discussion, please use NEDRA (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NEDRA)
