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Basic question needs simple answer

Clifty Branch Farm

Clifty Branch Farm

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I may need to re-educate myself. What charges a battery? Amps or Volts? I was taught and have believed for 40 years that it is amps. I am using AGM batteries. Thanks
 
If you want to go deep it's electrons so it's current over time.

Voltage is just a means to get those electrons moving. How much and how fast you move them is the amperage.
 
Current is the measure of the flow of electrons, like count them. Without current flow, no work, no charging is done. Voltage difference caused the current to flow, but no flow, no charge.
 
QUICK TIP — What’s the difference between Amps, Volts and Watts?

We get the question, “What’s the difference between amps, volts and watts?” enough that we thought we would address it here. There are some fairly complicated answers to this question but we thought we’d try to simplify the answer by using an analogy.
If we think of electricity as water flowing through a pipe it can help us understand amps, volts and watts. Amps would be the volume of water flowing through the pipe. The water pressure would be the voltage. Watts would be the power (volts x amps) the water could provide (think back to the old days when water was used to power mills). So with this analogy in mind the definitions below for amp, volt and watt should be easier to understand:
Amp – an ampere is the unit for measuring electricity. The accepted standard unit used for measuring how fast an electric current flows is an example of an ampere.
Volt – the basic unit of electromotive force in the SI and MKS systems, equal to the electromotive force, or difference in potential, that causes a current of one ampere to flow through a conductor having a resistance of one ohm.
Watt – the basic unit of electric, mechanical, or thermal power in the SI and MKS systems, equal to one joule per second or 10 ergs per second (of a horsepower): for electric power it is equal to one volt-ampere.
Back to our analogy; electricity is the flow (like water) of electrons through a conductor like a wire. The rate at which electricity flows is measured as an electric current. The electric current is measured in amps. What makes the current flow? In our water analogy we could say a battery would be the pump that makes the water flow which creates pressure in the pipe. The pressure is the voltage. And as we said before the watts are the power the water could provide (like to a mill wheel). The watt is a measure of how much power is released each second.
We hope you now have a better understanding of the difference between amps, volts and watts.
Click to expand...
SOURCE: http://www.newelectric.com/whats-the-difference-between-amps-volts-and-watts/
 
it is both Amps (how many) and volts (how fast)
you could add that neither is charging the battery because you put the same Amps and Volts to a light bulb and you charge nothing. (but you get light)
 
I mean without the right voltage, it won't charge at all. Once voltage is right, you can think of Amperage as the flow of water into a tank (and back out of a tank during discharge).
 
Time to clarify just what I know about low voltage systems. Auto mechanics. Thats it. That is where I learned that it was amps that did the charging. Meter could read 13.8 to 14.2 but if you read low on amp meter you had no charge. All is good. Just a new learning curve. Thanks to all.
 
So if I'm understanding this correctly......with solar, volts does the charging and amps would be the volume of charge going thru the wire. Hence too small a wire = restriction =heat =voltage drop? The more amps in larger wire = faster charge time with same voltage? Ofcourse I'm leaving the charge controller out of my examples.
 
wires are no sensitive to voltage, so you can put any voltage to any wire, it should not change a lot.
but wires are sensitive to Amps, so the more Amps, the thicker wire.
 
DThames said:
Current is the measure of the flow of electrons, like count them. Without current flow, no work, no charging is done. Voltage difference caused the current to flow, but no flow, no charge.
Click to expand...

So literally had an entire semester of Theory on this stuff and the truth is it takes BOTH /////

People like to say without current - there is no amps flowing ... BUT let's not forget -- without voltage you could set your power supply to 1000 amps and not charge a single thing ... it takes both ...

and YES there has been 100 page Thesis's wrote on this -- I just shake my head and make sure that I don't touch positive and negative together and call that success...
 
Clifty Branch Farm said:
I may need to re-educate myself. What charges a battery? Amps or Volts? I was taught and have believed for 40 years that it is amps. I am using AGM batteries. Thanks
Click to expand...

Both.
The charge source needs to have a voltage higher than the battery to get current(amps) to flow into the battery.
Simple enough?
 
Joules. Or both plus time. VxAxT
Both are super important, but the raw chemical reaction is about voltage, like the lemon battery. That time the current tells you how fast the chemical reaction takes place.

Basically, it’s hard to separate the two when it comes to batteries.
 
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