Recent content by Substrate

This EQ and solar-controller thing for agm's is always a confusion really because the nomenclature controller manufacturers use for it is totally wrong. And it usually gets disabled by the confusion. Sure enough, EQ for agm's is verboten, except for *some* brands. However, EQ is a lead-acid...

One option if you want to stay with lead, but need the fast charge is to go with "Pure Lead". Ie, Odyssey, Optima, and other pure-lead manufacturers. Costs more, but most support .5 to even 1C (2 hour / 1 hour) charges - *provided you are TIGHT with your charger specs on CV *. Their advanced...

As a preventative maintenance measure, every once in awhile - especially if brand new - charge each separately. If you have a multimeter, and can measure more than 0.1V difference between the batts, recharge them separately again as they can get out of balance with each other.

Oh yeah, the Everstart - always reminds me of the classic youtube vid from years back when the guy from Compass Marine was showing people how nasty an unregulated solar panel can be on them when used as a maintainer when *already* in a fully charged condition:

Don't know if it would be profitable - but perhaps convince someone like Victron to sell high-power 10A or higher "single-cell" nominal 3.2v chargers for LFP diy'ers. Maybe with a selectable 3.5 / 3.6 / 3.65v cv. Even cooler would be an adjustable tail-current disconnect. And put them on...

Well, 3.400v is what's known as the "knife edge" for the balance start trigger. This is at the very bottom of the differentiation between the normal flat-line charge, and the upper charge knee. With your setup, I'd definitely change that to at least 3450. Usually 3500 is in the middle of the...

Ack! SAE connectors. First things I chop off and replace with powerpoles. I don't know how many high-resistance, poor-contact, and oem polarity reversed versions caused me so much grief when starting out with the HF stuff and auto-parts solar projects back in the day... good times. :) At a...

I'm with you! Most recovery efforts are a waste of time, or worst of all, scams to hijack the proper recycling stream. Better not to let it get like that in the first place. Grandma told me that when putting aspirins in each cell, that Advil worked better than Bayer. :)

I'm partial to Tecmate/Optimate if you are going to do lead-acid float / maintain - mainly because I feel that they understand float right - that is, they use a 50% duty cycle of floating (30 min on / 30 min off) voltage. Really handy especially in hot temps for those without precise...

One goal at a time! In this case actually finishing a top-charge and balance. -grin- :) It takes TIME for those bms bleeder resistors to do their job on a bank with a large initial balance variance. - this can take many cycles and I noticed you have zero cycles tracked. Once that's achieved...

Something I've noticed - for some reason some BMS makers think that a balance-trigger-voltage of 3.40v is acceptable. It is NOT, as much as urban mythology tries to make it. Along with "always balancing". How to fry those rice-grain resistors. :) So just checking - if your adjustable bms has...

YIKES - be careful with Gel. Very easy to confuse their CV voltage with those of AGM. Doublecheck that you are not running anything higher than 2.35v / cell (14.1v for typical 12v nominal gel). Lower to 2.33v / cell for hotter climes. Anything higher for a true gel smokes them, although the...

The photo is hilarious! That's how we all feel about our batteries. Almost a human-relationship! :)

Question - if those are true gel's, than no more than 2.35v / cell. (14.1v for a nominal 12v gel) In that hot clime, I'd drop it to 2.33v / cell. Takes longer to charge though. Be careful here - some manufacturers label agm's as "gel", and visca-versca. See your battery spec sheet for what...

Exactly. There isn't enough current to do the job adequately, so balance is waaay off. Nerd-hat suggestion: Put the iMax B6 into single-cell or 1S config for LFP. Charge each one individually. Do a little discharge. Then recharge with the 4S config changing cables obviously. The ol'...