REDARC In Vehicle Battery Charger for 130 Puma

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Chenz

All of the sparkies and my Landy mechanic tell me that the REDARC is the way to go

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Hi Chenz and most auto electricians have no idea how to set up an effective dual battery system and depend on the misinformation supplied by the many sellers of DC/DC devices to win customers over.

Now while I am continually trying to educate people about the true value, or more accurately, the lack of value these devices offer, and I may sound totally against them, in part this is correct.

The problem is not with the devices themselves, they are capable of charging batteries properly, again the devices themselves are not the problem, it’s the grossly misleading advertising hype that is used to market these devices that is the real problem.

Even at 40 amps, these device really only equal what the alternator in a typical modern Land Rover can do, combined with one of my isolators, and as stated earlier, at a MUCH lower set up cost, and these DC/DC devices still don’t offer the advantages of one of my systems.

Now again, while I may sound like I am against these devices them selves, I am not and I actually sell DC/DC devices.

I sell 100 amp DC/DC devices to industries that can get a genuine return for their investment.

These units are used in vehicles like mobile coffee vendor's vehicles, where they need to get as much charge back into their battery backs as quickly as possible so the vehicles are ready for the next days use.

I also supply them for use in service vehicles, where they use large amounts of battery capacity while on a work location and need to replace as much used battery capacity as possible while travelling to the next work location.

These 100 amp units are also idea for use with lithium battery backs in caravans and motor homes.

These 100 amp units are the Sterling BB12-100 DC to DC chargers and unlike the toys available to RVers, these have both battery temperature monitoring and compensation plus alternator temperature monitoring and compensation.

Sterling have had a 50 amp unit for years but I have never offered these because your average alternator can still match even a 50 amp unit.

The 100 amp units will well and truly charge batteries faster and the average alternator, PROVIDING there is a need to do so.

NOTE, I do not offer them to RVers as there cost is usually not warranted.

I can't really agree with what you say. My 130 (TD5) alternator puts out 13.8 volts which is not enough to even nearly fully charge my Fullriver batteries which require 14.5 to 14.9 volts according to their website.

They also state that the maximum charge rate is capacity/4, so that a charge of 100 amps could damage any batteries of less than 400 a/h.

The graphs also show that if discarged to 20%, they only have half the life that they do if discharged to 50%. It's all here if anyone is interested. Of course, that is just one brand - others may be different.

http://www.fullriver.com/products/ad...sbrochures.pdf

Hi Silenceisgolden, and mate, you are missing a whole lot of of info.

First off, you do NOT need 14.5 to 14.9v to fully charge your batteries. This is a mistake most people make.

14.9v is the maximum voltage these batteries can be safely charged at. If you have a good look at the Fullriver site, somewhere on there they state that their batteries can be fully charged with a voltage of just 13.0v, it will just take a LOT longer.

Next, I am not suggesting you use one of the 100 amp DC to DC chargers, in fact I don’t even list them on my site for the reasons I posted earlier.

BUT, if you use one of these 100 amp chargers, because they come with battery temperature monitoring and compensation, your battery would not be charged at 100 amps.

As to discharge voltages.

If you were to go out every weekend and every time you go out, you discharged your battery down to 20% SoC, then you can only expect to get 5+ years of use from that battery, according to Fullriver's own specs.

How long do you think your battery will last if you only cycle it down to 50% SoC?

As above, you have missed a whole lot of info and when you factor in things like real use patens, even when cycling your battery down to 20%, SoC, your battery will die of old age way before before that sort of cycling use has any major effects on your battery’s capacity.

I am sure you are right in what you say, but I do know that with my 130 the house battery battled to run the fridge over a two night stop after a full days driving, but with the Redarc DC-DC instead of a basic Redarc solenoid it has no trouble at all. Much better.

So what you are saying is that in your case, you got an improvement, because you could not fully charge your battery after a “full days driving”

If you could not fully charge ANY battery and ANY number of batteries after a full days drive, then there is something wrong with your setup.

Even at 13.8v, your alternator should have no problem FULLY CHARGE a low battery after a full days drive.

Again, somethings wrong with your setup.

Maybe, but anyway, the Redarc completely fixed whatever was wrong. Works great now.

from the the pdf you pointed out

max voltage when fully charged 13.5v so anything above 13.5v is going to charge your battery.

http://www.aulro.com/afvb/attachment...1&d=1393637487


charge voltages at various temperatures

so at 40deg C anything above 14.34v is wasted or bad it appears

http://www.aulro.com/afvb/attachment...1&d=1393637576


even worse under a bonnet or at the back of an engine under a seat.

Yep, his battery should have been at at least 95+% after a full days drive, and I rate a drive time of 5 hours as a full days drive.

While he has got around what ever the problem was/is, it’s a hell of an expensive solution for what was probably a simple and inexpensive fix.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Silenceisgolden

I can't really agree with what you say. My 130 (TD5) alternator puts out 13.8 volts which is not enough to even nearly fully charge my Fullriver batteries which require 14.5 to 14.9 volts according to their website.

They also state that the maximum charge rate is capacity/4, so that a charge of 100 amps could damage any batteries of less than 400 a/h.

The graphs also show that if discarged to 20%, they only have half the life that they do if discharged to 50%. It's all here if anyone is interested. Of course, that is just one brand - others may be different.

http://www.fullriver.com/products/ad...sbrochures.pdf

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I run a fullriver in my 101 - off a simple solenoid at the moment, but with a Traxide kit soon - I'll explain more about that in a minute.

My wimpy little 35 amp alternator that can only punch out 13.8 volts can bring my battery back up to over 90% SOC (12.5 volts) after 6 hours on the road - from an overnight stay. Longer than that and my solar panel on it during he day. If I don't move and don't use my solar panel, I can still run my 38 litre Engel easily for 3 days and still not have it trip on low volts. Sounds like you have an underlying issue with your system.

Now, just to point something out about the Traxide kits. I have one in my L322 charging 2 UPS batteries. Once I fitted the kit I found something remarkable happened that you simply won't see from your setup. 2 things happened - 1st is that I got a lot longer running from my fridge and had better volts in the morning than I usually had - why? - because the Traxide kit keeps the house batteries and the cranking battery connected together until the volts drop quite a bit - this still gives you plenty of grunt in the morning to start the car, but makes life easier on your house batteries. The second thing is the best though. During normal day to day driving, this actually brings your cranking battery up to a higher state of charge. Most Winters - even with a new battery, I get the odd fault code thrown up due to low volts during cranking first thing in the morning. Now I get none of that. It cranks faster and starts easier, even when really cold.

Let's see you DCDC unit pull that trick out of its bag.:). I'm sure your unit is doing what you need it to do, but there are far better ways.

I'm a sparky by trade and know a bit about 12 volt stuff - more than most, but I realised quite soon after I joined here that Traxide knows more than anyone else I know. Your relying on the words of mechanics and Sparkys like me, but he makes a living - not just by selling this stuff, but by designing it too. He knows his ****.:)

His after sales service is also second to none by the way - there you go, free plug mate.:D

It also looks like you may have misinterpreted the info on the Fullriver PDF.

"A discharged battery will accept a high charging current at the initial stage of charging. High charging current can cause abnormal internal heating which may damage the battery. Therefore, when applying a suitable voltage to recharge a battery that is being used in a recycling application it is necessary to limit the charging current to a value of 0.25C Amps. However, in float/standby use, FULLRIVER batteries are designed so that even if the available charging current is higher than the recommended limit, they will not accept more than 2C Amps and the charging current will fall to a relatively small value in a very brief period of time."

This shows that you need to limit current to 0.25C in a recycling application, but it will naturally accept up to 2C in normal use, so the battery could well take 100 amp from a good alternator (not mine:D) for some time if it was quite a way discharged.

Also, the charging voltage is stated at "For standby (float) use . . . . . . . 2.25 to 2.30 volts per cell"

So 13.5 to 13.8 volts will fully charge the battery.:)