Battery Charger Float Mode

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by drivesafe

Hi Scott, and your results are exactly what you should be seeing.


But first, prior to starting your charging test, did you do a lot of short drives, and I mean over say the last few months?


If so, then you have been slowly reducing the USABLE battery capacity.


Then by charging every night, the FLOAT portion of the charge cycle has been slowly recovering lost battery capacity.


If you use a digital multi meter to measure the voltage in the morning, you will probably get a fully charged indication.


This is partially correct. The voltage reading relates to the State of Charge ( SoC ) for amount of USABLE battery capacity available, not for the original total capacity.


Whereas, your BMS is relating to the percentage of battery capacity available, based on the original total battery capacity.


Both results are accurate and can be used together to keep an eye on you battery capacity over the lifespan of the battery.


A suggestion for you, keep carrying out your nightly chargers and see how close to 100% you can get.


BTW, your overnight cycles are actually much more effective than just leaving the charger on continually.


Also, there is no need to separate the batteries while you charge them. They will both eventually reach the maximum state of charge independent of one another even while connected together while charging.

---

Hi Tim, can you confirm charging both batteries via the 50amp at the rear without changing any configuration is also safe?
Much easier than opening up the bonnet...
Cheers, Andrew

Hi Andrew and yes, you can use either a battery charger or solar panels, via a solar regulator for 20w or larger solar panels, to fully charge both batteries.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by drivesafe

Hi Andrew and yes, you can use either a battery charger or solar panels, via a solar regulator for 20w or larger solar panels, to fully charge both batteries.

---

Beauty, thanks for confirming!
Sorry for the hijack Scott [emoji38]

Ok that's good Tim. It's just the charger saying float mode confused me a little because I assumed it would't get there until fully charged. Is the charger sensing "useable capacity" and then going to float mode kind of early, followed by time on float increasing usable capacity slowly ?

Scott

Guys I don't have the ctek but purchased the power train 12amp charger from Australian Direct.

Power Train 12 Amp 12 Volt 7 Stage Smart Battery Charger

Do you know if this is a worthwhile charger to continue using or should I bin it and go ctek or other?

If it is working OK don't bin it, just use it.

BTW, if you set it to Lead Acid - AGM, you can safely charge all types of batteries with the one setting.

So the timing of going to float mode is related to usable capacity at that time and extra time in float repeated each night is increasing the usable capacity progressively back to full capacity. And is the BMS sensing only the crank battery SoC being on its neg lead.

Scott

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by drivesafe

If it is working OK don't bin it, just use it.

BTW, if you set it to Lead Acid - AGM, you can safely charge all types of batteries with the one setting.

---

Cheers Tim. To be honest I need to do regular checks to confirm that.

Ive used it every 4 weeks for 3 nights in a row for roughly 8hrs a session.
Without doing measurements all seems to be happy on a car that does roughly 60kms a day.