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Need help picking battery charger

Dmckindley

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Joined
Oct 17, 2021
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I’m a newbie and need help picking best charger that won’t ruin my batteries. I currently have 2x12V SOK batteries with 206 amp hours each connected in parallel. i’m concerned about buying a charger with too much amperage that would decrease the duration of my batteries. I need to find balance of good power to charge quickly but yet not compromising my battery pack. The AIMS charger is too costly. Looking at the progressive dynamics 30 or 45 amp, or the blue smart IP 22 charger 30 amp. Are these too low power? What are other suggestions in the $200 price range?
 
To be clear, are you talking about a 120VAC charger that your plug into the wall socket and attach clamps to the battery terminals, or are you talking about a solar charge controller the receives its power from solar panels?

As a general rule of thumb, batteries like charging at between 1/8th C for lead and 1/4 C for Li. Since you have two 206Ah batteries in parallel, that would be (206Ah X 2 batteries)/4 = 103amps. I don't think you are going to find a 120VAC charger that puts out that many amps at an affordable price. The best option might be to divide your bank and charge each battery separately. I'd select the 45amp PD charger.
 
I am waiting for my EVE 280Ah cells to arrive. I expect they are off the coast of California in that traffic jam. My main system is 48v but I will run a small 12v system for TV and lighting at night. I think this charger might be worth looking at. I am not sure how programmable the charge curves are though. I will call TRC this week and probably order a pair for the 48v system and one for the 12v system.
 
do you
I’m a newbie and need help picking best charger that won’t ruin my batteries. I currently have 2x12V SOK batteries with 206 amp hours each connected in parallel. i’m concerned about buying a charger with too much amperage that would decrease the duration of my batteries. I need to find balance of good power to charge quickly but yet not compromising my battery pack. The AIMS charger is too costly. Looking at the progressive dynamics 30 or 45 amp, or the blue smart IP 22 charger 30 amp. Are these too low power? What are other suggestions in the $200 price range?
Do you have link to the PD 45 charger? I will look at and report back :)
 
do you

Do you have link to the PD 45 charger? I will look at and report back :)
You have been extremely helpful. So the 45amp changer is the one at Battle born. There is also a 60amp which sounds like the recommendation would be to go with more power. I was staying away from anything close to the 50amp max but didn’t know that was for only half the battery pack.
There is also the AIMS charger which is 75amp at the same price as the 60amp from battle born. Thanks for any additional advice. I guess I will need to spend more than $200 but is I can stay less than $300 that would be best. Thanks.
 
To be clear, are you talking about a 120VAC charger that your plug into the wall socket and attach clamps to the battery terminals, or are you talking about a solar charge controller the receives its power from solar panels?

As a general rule of thumb, batteries like charging at between 1/8th C for lead and 1/4 C for Li. Since you have two 206Ah batteries in parallel, that would be (206Ah X 2 batteries)/4 = 103amps. I don't think you are going to find a 120VAC charger that puts out that many amps at an affordable price. The best option might be to divide your bank and charge each battery separately. I'd select the 45amp PD charger.
This is extremely helpful. Would it be worth an additional $70 to get a charger in the 60-75amp range?
 
You have been extremely helpful. So the 45amp changer is the one at Battle born. There is also a 60amp which sounds like the recommendation would be to go with more power. I was staying away from anything close to the 50amp max but didn’t know that was for only half the battery pack.
There is also the AIMS charger which is 75amp at the same price as the 60amp from battle born. Thanks for any additional advice. I guess I will need to spend more than $200 but is I can stay less than $300 that would be best. Thanks.
Your post has spawned lots of good info. I'll take a look at the 60A charger. One of the (in my situation) most important features of a charger is power factor correction (PFC). PFC pulls nice sine waves off of the line. I am running a small 3500W inverter generator and intend to max it out when charging my 48v bank. I will use a 3200W charger. I do not know your situation, but for anyone running a charger beyond 1/2 of the generator rating then PFC is worth looking at. Chargers typically use SCRs or a capacitive input filter - either of which can cause large RMS currents to flow. These currents can confound generators, bith inverter and non-inverter types. I am also looking at a pair of the Meanwell ENC 360 chargers and the programmer. This may be the most inexpensive solution and provide some redundancy in the case of a failure. Chargers are only $87 each for 24 amps and digikey has programmer for $50. That's less than $230 for 48amps.
 
You are talking some foreign language to me so will need to read about Enc 360 chargers a programmer. If you think this is an option for me please let know. Thank you.
 
I am running a small 3500W inverter generator and intend to max it out when charging my 48v bank. I will use a 3200W charger. I do not know your situation, but for anyone running a charger beyond 1/2 of the generator rating then PFC is worth looking at.
You may or may not be actually able to do that. Some inverters "qualify" the incoming power, and "decide" whether or not to accept the power based on its level of cleanlyness, that is voltage stability, frequency, and spikes. In my own personal experience, my inverter will reject the power my generator puts out over a certain level, which in my case is 40%. You may find you need a generator that can put out double the amps you want for the inverter to be happy with it.
 
You may or may not be actually able to do that. Some inverters "qualify" the incoming power, and "decide" whether or not to accept the power based on its level of cleanlyness, that is voltage stability, frequency, and spikes. In my own personal experience, my inverter will reject the power my generator puts out over a certain level, which in my case is 40%. You may find you need a generator that can put out double the amps you want for the inverter to be happy with it.
Yes - if you have nasty power then all bets are off. I am putting the output of inverter generator directly into a PFC charger. I am hoping generator inverter power is clean and PFC will have no issues dealing with it. There are other issues when running a power converter off of a power converter. Each converter has a control loop and from time to time the two loops don't get along well and you get oscillations and ringing and so forth. The inverter generator into a PFC charger is just that, so for now I keep my fingers crossed. I mentioned large RMS currents when running non-pfc chargers. In this case yes, you want to oversize the generator 2:1. These little generators have a high output impedance and the voltage waveforms fall apart with anything other than a linear load. Inverters with good loops can be better than the usual generator voltage waveforms we see.
 
You may or may not be actually able to do that. Some inverters "qualify" the incoming power, and "decide" whether or not to accept the power based on its level of cleanlyness, that is voltage stability, frequency, and spikes. In my own personal experience, my inverter will reject the power my generator puts out over a certain level, which in my case is 40%. You may find you need a generator that can put out double the amps you want for the inverter to be happy with it.
What are you using for a generator? Are you using an inverter with PFC charger?
 
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