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Old 02-18-2014, 07:25 AM   #21
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Re: Battery - I hardly knew ye

I just had the new battery installed, and hopefully this one lasts a bit longer.

I spent a couple of hours digging through older posts educating myself on the care and feeding of AGM batteries. I feel like I have adopted a pet that needs constant attention!

Anyway, I found this to be very informative:

http://www.solar-electric.com/deep-cycl ... 20Voltages

A lot of great information on how and when to charge, etc.

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Old 02-19-2014, 07:58 PM   #22
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Re: Battery - I hardly knew ye

I'm still trying to educate myself on batteries. There is an incredible amount of great information by members of this forum. A few that were very helpful are Scalf77, daveb, Ford_6L_E350. Many thanks to you guys.

I would like to take better care with my new battery, and digging through the owners manual of my Magnum inverter/converter/charger, it tells me that it has 4 automatic modes: bulk, absorb, float, and full charge.

What interests me most is the "Full Charge" mode. It states that "The Full Charge stage is designed to keep batteries fully charged over long periods, and to prevent excessive loss of water in flooded batteries or drying out of GEL/AGM batteries. In this stage, the charger is turned off and begins monitoring the battery voltage; if the battery voltage drops to 12.7 VDC or less . . . the charger automatically initiates another four hours in float charge."

Well isn't it ideal to just leave my rig plugged in 24/7 with this charger setup? Would it be better to leave the rig plugged in, or just charge up the battery every month or so?
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Old 02-19-2014, 08:38 PM   #23
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Re: Battery - I hardly knew ye

Yes, you probably could get away with leaving it on all the time. It does not sound like you leave much on, when you are parked anyway (like the refrigerator). There have been reported cases of some charges seeing a current spike like the refrigerator turning on, and thus putting themselves back absorption mode. Many good chargers have some algorithms that prevent this from happening. I have not done a lot research on the Magnum inverter, but I believe they would have addressed it. I leave my van plugged in all the time.

One thing to watch out for is since you have a bidirectional automatic charging relay, that when plugged in you will be charging the van battery(s), since this may not be a AGM battery you will want to monitor it a little more frequently.

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Old 02-24-2014, 04:51 PM   #24
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Re: Battery - I hardly knew ye

What everybody leaves out is if something goes wrong with one or more of the battery systems. This has happened twice to me and I did post on it. You crank up your charger which is set to automatic. Batteries are fine and after a full good charge the charger ramps down to settle at about an amp. This covers everything until a load is applied. So one day your starting battery starts to fail. Normally they don't just die. Most batteries are prone to sulfation. Small amount of material forms on the plates and it reduces the batteries ability to hold charge. Higher amp charging creates heat helping to expose the bad cell. Soon the battery gets hotter and hotter because the automatic setting only see's a larger load. So the charger ramps up. It puts out more and more amperage because all it thinks is more of a load is being applied. Soon the charger reaches a high amp mode but before that the bad battery starts to off gas and almost is at a state of explosion (the rotten egg smell). You don't know it because the last time you looked at the van was a week ago. The battery lugs might turn red hot and there is even a possibility of a fire.
In my two situations one incident almost caused a fire. The other time I saw things going south on my voltage monitors and inverter amp gauge and was able to cut it off in time.
There are several ways to prevent this.
>>Monitor the charge daily.
>>Have the amps setting on the inverter set to a lower charge rate. The problem here is the charge time will be much longer and if something kicks on that is higher than the chargers output, the battery system can loose charge.
>>install disconnects on each battery and charge each on a slow low maintenance charge. That is a PITA.
>>There are more ways but slightly over the top IMO.

One good idea is Mike's suggestion, using a high amp charge on a timer. I do wish that was a mode setting on my inverter.

Keeping the separator open only protects if one system or the other during a failure. Plus you don't keep each system charged. Starting batteries need to be kept up as well.

Although failing batteries have happened twice to me, I still charge over night. But I always look at my gauges daily.

Dave






Quote:
Originally Posted by edroid
I'm still trying to educate myself on batteries. There is an incredible amount of great information by members of this forum. A few that were very helpful are Scalf77, daveb, Ford_6L_E350. Many thanks to you guys.

I would like to take better care with my new battery, and digging through the owners manual of my Magnum inverter/converter/charger, it tells me that it has 4 automatic modes: bulk, absorb, float, and full charge.

What interests me most is the "Full Charge" mode. It states that "The Full Charge stage is designed to keep batteries fully charged over long periods, and to prevent excessive loss of water in flooded batteries or drying out of GEL/AGM batteries. In this stage, the charger is turned off and begins monitoring the battery voltage; if the battery voltage drops to 12.7 VDC or less . . . the charger automatically initiates another four hours in float charge."

Well isn't it ideal to just leave my rig plugged in 24/7 with this charger setup? Would it be better to leave the rig plugged in, or just charge up the battery every month or so?
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Old 02-24-2014, 05:19 PM   #25
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Re: Battery - I hardly knew ye

Thanks Dave, for the reasons you explain, I decided to only charge the battery once a month or so. I will monitor the voltages and charge more closely than I have previously. . .

Quote:
Originally Posted by daveb
What everybody leaves out is if something goes wrong with one or more of the battery systems. This has happened twice to me and I did post on it. You crank up your charger which is set to automatic. Batteries are fine and after a full good charge the charger ramps down to settle at about an amp. This covers everything until a load is applied. So one day your starting battery starts to fail. Normally they don't just die. Most batteries are prone to sulfation. Small amount of material forms on the plates and it reduces the batteries ability to hold charge. Higher amp charging creates heat helping to expose the bad cell. Soon the battery gets hotter and hotter because the automatic setting only see's a larger load. So the charger ramps up. It puts out more and more amperage because all it thinks is more of a load is being applied. Soon the charger reaches a high amp mode but before that the bad battery starts to off gas and almost is at a state of explosion (the rotten egg smell). You don't know it because the last time you looked at the van was a week ago. The battery lugs might turn red hot and there is even a possibility of a fire.
In my two situations one incident almost caused a fire. The other time I saw things going south on my voltage monitors and inverter amp gauge and was able to cut it off in time.
There are several ways to prevent this.
>>Monitor the charge daily.
>>Have the amps setting on the inverter set to a lower charge rate. The problem here is the charge time will be much longer and if something kicks on the is higher than the chargers output, the battery system can loose charge.
>>install disconnects on each battery and charge each on a slow low maintenance. That is a PITA.
>>There are more ways but slightly over the top IMO.

One good idea is Mike's suggestion, using a high amp charge on a timer. I do wish that was a mode setting on my inverter.

Keeping the separator open only protects if one system or the other during a failure. Plus you don't keep each system charged. Starting batteries need to be kept up as well.

Although failing batteries have happened twice to me, I still charge over night. But I always look at my gauges daily.

Dave







Quote:
Originally Posted by edroid
I'm still trying to educate myself on batteries. There is an incredible amount of great information by members of this forum. A few that were very helpful are Scalf77, daveb, Ford_6L_E350. Many thanks to you guys.

I would like to take better care with my new battery, and digging through the owners manual of my Magnum inverter/converter/charger, it tells me that it has 4 automatic modes: bulk, absorb, float, and full charge.

What interests me most is the "Full Charge" mode. It states that "The Full Charge stage is designed to keep batteries fully charged over long periods, and to prevent excessive loss of water in flooded batteries or drying out of GEL/AGM batteries. In this stage, the charger is turned off and begins monitoring the battery voltage; if the battery voltage drops to 12.7 VDC or less . . . the charger automatically initiates another four hours in float charge."

Well isn't it ideal to just leave my rig plugged in 24/7 with this charger setup? Would it be better to leave the rig plugged in, or just charge up the battery every month or so?
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Old 02-24-2014, 06:35 PM   #26
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Re: Battery - I hardly knew ye

I really think a multi stage battery maintenance charger on a timer with all the load turned off is your best bet. If you want to prep for a trip you can bypass the timer and crank up the charger as usual. That doesn't hurt unless something goes wrong which is very very slim. You'll probably have more issues with under charging if you leave something on when using a small charger which can't keep up. The key is looking on a regular basis.
As long as there is no load left on in the van, charging a couple days weekly for 8-12 hrs with your inverter is a good routine. It keeps things topped off and forces you to take a look at the batteries state. At least if you do accidently leave something on you'll probably catch it in time. Even with my charger off, mine keeps a low amp (below 1A) maintenance charge at the batteries.
The beauty of solar is it keeps things fully charged at a low rate...no overcharging. As long as the solar is enough to keep up with the items you normally let run 24-7 it is a nice option. I always let my refrigerator run off the shore power so the only load in the van is the CO detector.

I'm not saying how others keep their batteries in a storage state is right or wrong, only saying what has worked for me over the years since I found out what my inverter did to my starting batteries. Also because I have 4 batteries that total to about 1800 bucks, I need to watch things carefully.
Good luck
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