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Signature Solar Charger Not Meeting Specs..?

LLLL

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Feb 2, 2020
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I put a Kill-A-Watt tester inline with my new Signature Solar

EG4, 48V 18A Battery Charger and it's only pulling 9.4 amps.

I've made 3 calls and 2 tech support emails over the last week with no help coming from Signature Solar.


I'm I missing something about how this thing is supposed to work?

Thanks
 
I put a Kill-A-Watt tester inline with my new Signature Solar

EG4, 48V 18A Battery Charger and it's only pulling 9.4 amps.

I've made 3 calls and 2 tech support emails over the last week with no help coming from Signature Solar.


I'm I missing something about how this thing is supposed to work?

Thanks
It charges the battery (DC side) with 18a you're reading the AC side... Ohms law.
120vac x 9.4a = 1128 watts.
Charger output dc x 18a x efficiency factor = darn close to 1128.
 
Super grateful for the response, thank you
You're welcome, give it time and it'll all start to make a whole lot more sense to you. I've only been at it a little over a year, thanks to all the awesome members here I've learned lots.
If you want to see DC side in real time you can utilize your BMS communication (if equipped) and/or a shunt (likely more precise).
 
How is that charger working out for you? I'm searching for suitable chargers for my pair of kilovault habs (48v, 300ah bank) to integrate stand alone chargers, and keep coming back to these for the price, thinking on 2 or 3 of them all tied into my bus bars. Anyone have any experience with them? I see they charge at ~58v... how do they know when to throttle back to prevent overcharging? Do they switch from CC to CV at a certain voltage? I've emailed signature solar a few times asking these questions, but like every single one of my previous emails over the past few years, they go completely unanswered.
 
How is that charger working out for you? I'm searching for suitable chargers for my pair of kilovault habs (48v, 300ah bank) to integrate stand alone chargers, and keep coming back to these for the price, thinking on 2 or 3 of them all tied into my bus bars. Anyone have any experience with them? I see they charge at ~58v... how do they know when to throttle back to prevent overcharging? Do they switch from CC to CV at a certain voltage? I've emailed signature solar a few times asking these questions, but like every single one of my previous emails over the past few years, they go completely unanswered.
They are BMS chargers. The BMS from your battery will throttle the charger to prevent itself from being over charged. The charger will not overcharge a lithium battery with a functioning BMS.
 
That's not inaccurate, but that is only a small snapshot of how the charger actually works. The BMS in your battery is going to control the flow of amperage being drawn from the charger until the battery reaches the desired voltage.
 
So. I had passed along this information regarding these chargers to the Kilovault tech support, and received this verdict, for whoever might find it useful,




"In short the constant voltage chargers are not acceptable. The voltage is too high. The BMS will protect it, but that is only meant for odd circumstances not normal off switch. Continuously depending on the BMS to prevent it will result in damage. The highest recommended voltage is 56v , Note the your Bulk and absorb voltage should only reach 56V with a absorb time of 2 to 5 min, The float voltage is 53.8"
 
However, I'm thinking it's possible to run these chargers through my classic 150, which will be out of a job once my Hawk's Bay CC comes in.
 
I just took a peek at the spec sheet and general features...a variable voltage, variable current (up to 100a) output with dual voltage input, for $400? That's an abnormally low price point, to say the least. If it really does what it says it does, with reasonable longevity, that's a ridiculously good deal. Does this unit depend upon the bms to throttle down as well?
 
So, SignatureSolarJames, what's a status of "backorder/partial ship" mean? I ordered the chargeverter, which on the site, doesn't mention anything about it being on backorder. Wth?
 
Id send an email direct to company, but as I've never received a single reply from the 5 previous ones I've sent, I've quickly realized SSs priority is public relations on forums rather than customer service on the individual level. An observation I'm apparently far from alone with. Generally, a big red flag for me.
 
The situation is covered in detail in another thread here. That is just an FYI, not an excuse for whatever they should be doing that they aren't.

BMS's generally cannot control flow in or out of a battery OTHER THAN by disconnecting the battery from the terminals entirely. So it is on/off in that regard. However, BMSs with communications features, when communicating with compatible chargers, can tell the charger what to do, and indirectly control flow in or out of the battery in that way.

The 100a Chargeverter does not communicate with BMS's. It simply tries to hit whatever voltage and current limits you set it to. Your batteries have recommended settings for charge voltages and current. You plug those in, flip it on, and don't really worry about it.

The only caveat to that is that lifepo4 do not like to fed 'charging voltages' for long periods when they are already full. With the chargeverter, you would need to notice when the charge current has dropped to 'tail current' levels (5% of your amp-hour number, generally) and turn it off. So, it would require some supervision, although only IF your batteries charge to full, and only WHEN they would be close to full. So if you do not use it to fully charge your batteries, you do not need to pay close attention to it. IF you DO use it to fully charge your batteries, and you know your starting point (state of charge), you can do some mental math to tell you how many hours until it would be near full, and only pay attention to it after that time has passed.

You could also power the chargeverter through a relay/contactor that is controlled by something else, such as dry contacts on your inverter, or an output from a programmable bms or 'battery monitor'. That would allow you to turn the chargeverter off automatically based on some conditions you could set up.

For example, you could use your inverter's 'switch from battery to grid' and 'switch from grid to battery' settings to control a contactor to turn the chargeverter on or off. If the chargeverter is powered by a generator and the generator is not running, nothing happens when you turn it on! So you could leave this control scheme working silently and doing nothing whenever the generator was not already running. However, when the generator WAS running, the inverter would turn the chargeverter off. This would let your inverter prevent overcharge but not start the generator without your permission. If your generator was able to be started and stopped remotely using the dry contacts you could have the inverter turn the generator on and off and leave the chargeverter plugged into it, in which case it is effectively controlling both.

All of that applies to any non-communicating charger or charge source.
 
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