Battery and Charger manufacturers should be locked up !

well, I dont have a specific grievance per se - just a total lack of quality information on battery charging - it's difficult to match up charger capabilities to battery requirements - I've posted and followed other peoples posts on PBO forum, with lots of good (and conflicting) replies in the past (dont want to bore with the details here)- it seems that there's a lot of confusion out there about how to do this.

I've read the manufacturers blurb on solar regulators and my batteries, but cant reconcile the two. I've written to the battery distributor, manufacturer, solar panel regulator manufacturer a couple of days ago with questions on my setup, so if they ever respond, maybe this will help!

Part of the problem seems to be charging regimen for AGM/Gel/Sealed batteries - most reponses seem to be of the order of 'should be ok' on X setting, but nobody seems sure.

I expect my battery manufacturer to tell me they endorse using mains charger X,Y or Z, and , solar regulator a,b or c. I have sent them details of two proposed regulators, both of which 'seem' to be compatible with 'AGM' batteries based on which bits of their blurb you read, but neither is consistent with the AGM manufacturers expectation of charging voltages.

Maybe I am asking too much, or maybe this is not an exact science, and these guys havnt really figured it all out yet ?

Edit: Thats amazing, I do feel better now !
 
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but have them in a room to decide how much profit they want!!

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hadnt thought of that, once they'd got over the shock, this would probably end up being first on the agenda once the door was closed.!
 
Aiden,
just use an old alternator from a car shop, and batteries at a fiver each from the breakers. Sometimes they last 1/2 a season, some have lasted 3 seasons. Either way, just screw it all together and have a separate bank if one goes flat. I also use cheap battery switching.
Of course, my posh new boat has a plethora of auto smart charging thingummywhatsits which I don't understand at the moment. I don't rely on electrics or engines having sailed around in junk for years.
Suggest you head for the bar and ease off your ire on a couple of pints and a large pasty.
/forums/images/graemlins/smirk.gif


Jim
 
[ QUOTE ]
I don't rely on electrics or engines having sailed around in junk for years.

Hear hear . . . while not wishing to start the 'chuck the engine' debate again I have to say that sails and paper charts will remain the priorities until we reach that happy position of having more money than sense.

So which will come first to bring this happy state about, senility or the lottery win?

- Nick
 
Locked up in a dry cell or a Leclanche?

Anyway they'll probably tell you it's not their volt. /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif
 
Thats it, I'm going sailing this summer, instead of looking into charging AGM batteries.
Never understand this love affair the boater's have with smart charger's, most are dumb and copies of another. I've spent the last twenty years saying if you have a problem a smart regulator may help, if you do not have a problem it will make no differance, now watch the mails. In the mid 90's Hella sold a smart regulator at £62 for cars, I looked at selling them for boats, no sooner than they disappeared, and reapeared as a unit half the forum seem to use at three times the price.

Brian
 
No lottery win, so I will keep paying the mortgage. Senility is well on track though.
The new bateau has all the latest gewgaws, and I have even got a generator on board as it is kept on a swinging mooring. With the available power, I am going to fit a Stannah stair lift so I dont have to climb the wretched companionway steps.
That wont stop me from being my usual self and switching it all off except depth/log to conserve power as a habit.
I wonder if I can equal my seasons record of only burning 2 gallons of diesel? Not with the latest 3 cylinder turbo nutter thing.......
 
Whatever did we do before ??

Boats went around with a couple od car batterys, a switch and charge from a standard dynamo or alternator stuck on the diesel donkey.
Now we have all sorts of fancy bits and bobs and the debate seems to get louder and louder .... surely with all the gizmos around now - charging and batterys should be better off and less need for debate about how to keep them charged / in good nick etc. ?????

Not knocking the post - just commenting that as we advance in technology - we also seem to increase our debate on it !!!!
 
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jimDew: Suggest you head for the bar and ease off your ire on a couple of pints and a large pasty.

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This is definitely the best suggestion I've had in a long time. However, just my luck - today being good friday, it's the one day in the year that the pubs in Ireland are closed by law - you cannot buy alcohol in Ireland today!. .. maybe that explains the crowds in the boatyard this afternoon - it was swarming with twitchy boaties looking for something to keep them occupied.

[ QUOTE ]
Halcyon: Thats it, I'm going sailing this summer, instead of looking into charging AGM batteries.

[/ QUOTE ] Too late for me, I've already fallen (or been pushed?) into a quicksand of batteries and high techie bits that I dont yet fully understand. wonder what's the stair lift thingy JimDew is talking about, must dash off to check if I need one of those..... and all the while I am starting to envy the boats that dont have the fancy bits. I suspect there's some complicated name for this, but I feel it will stop soon.
 
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just commenting that as we advance in technology - we also seem to increase our debate on it !!!!

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Nigel, I cant agree more - thats the essence of what this post is about, I didnt intend to bring the details onto scuttlebutt, just venting frustration.
Working in the IT industry, I see this all the time - we shuffle like lemmings from one side of the technology to another in response to the IT hacks and suppliers telling us what the latest & greatest is, and a few years later we all shuffle back again, when they've run out of new ideas, and decide the old way wasnt so bad, after it's been re-christened and disguised under a new name !
 
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I've read the manufacturers blurb on solar regulators and my batteries, but cant reconcile the two....... ....... most reponses seem to be of the order of 'should be ok' on X setting, but nobody seems sure........I expect my battery manufacturer to tell me they endorse using mains charger X,Y or Z, and , solar regulator a,b or c. .......

Maybe I am asking too much, or maybe this is not an exact science, and these guys havnt really figured it all out yet ?

[/ QUOTE ]Been there. The problem is that you are dealing with salesmen, not engineers. The technical literacy of those who profess to be technical is shocking - almost completely untrained but filled with spin and sound bites. The comments that I have posted to you on the other thread have been carefully researched - as far as I have been able.

Good luck, David
 
Aiden
It's really quite simple if you strip away the sales bull. AGM batteries - the latest fashion - will take the same charge that the old wet, lead acid batteries would, so in theory you can charge them with a car charger. But it's unlikely you'll get enough amps from the car charger to fully recharge a large bank, so you need a 3-stage charger that will punch some hefty amps into the batteries for 90 per cent of the charge cycle. This will reduce charging time and get them fully charged each time. If you half charge batteries by using a poor charger, they will not last anywhere near as long.
The only batteries you really need to watch out for are gel types, and they must not be charged at voltage above 14.2V or they will be damaged. Most marine chargers have a special setting for gel batteries.
All the same applies to alternator charging. The standard alternator and regulator supplied with a new boat are car types because they're cheap! But they are the equivalent of the car charger and won't supply the amps to fully recharge them in a reasonable time. Changing the regulator to a heavy-duty one (you can get one for less than £100 and it doesn't need to be 3-stage or fancy - unless you are using gel batteries) will allow a much quicker charge. If you have a large battery bank you might need to change the alternator as well.
That's about it. I've had decent deep-cycle, sealed lead-acid batteries that have given excellent performance over 7 years by charging them properly and never letting them discharge below 50 per cent - something that is equally important if you want them to last.
If you need more, non-biased info I can pm it to you. I don't work for any electrical outfit, but I am a qualified electronics engineer.
DK
 
DK, Like you I am a qualified electronics engineer and like Aiden my problem has been in getting factual statements about batteries. From the sound of it you might have information that I have been searching for, for months. I've recently bought three expensive Varta semi-traction flooded batteries but I have been unable to obtain a technical data sheet worthy of the name. RS give better data sheets on a 1/4 metal film resistor than these people give on their batteries. It is worse than frustrating, it makes it impossible to decide which charger to go for and, having bought a charger, how to best set it up for your batteries. Before anyone says "it doesn't matter", it matters to me and it seems that it matters to Aiden. I expect a technology product to have proper technical information.[ QUOTE ]
It's really quite simple if you strip away the sales bull. AGM batteries - the latest fashion - will take the same charge that the old wet, lead acid batteries would, so in theory you can charge them with a car charger. But it's unlikely you'll get enough amps from the car charger to fully recharge a large bank, so you need a 3-stage charger that will punch some hefty amps into the batteries for 90 per cent of the charge cycle.

[/ QUOTE ]This in not my understanding of AGM charging. I stand to be corrected on this, and the whole of this post, as I have been unable to study any actual data sheets, but from the information available to me, the main issue seems to be gassing causing loss of water. You must not force a heavy punch into AGMs for 90% of the cycle or they will gas to the extent that they will vent, losing water that can never be replaced.[ QUOTE ]
The only batteries you really need to watch out for are gel types, and they must not be charged at voltage above 14.2V or they will be damaged. Most marine chargers have a special setting for gel batteries.

[/ QUOTE ]I believe that AGM fall into this category. The figure of 14.2V comes from the requirement not to allow the cells to produce too much gas. Sealed batteries can recombine a certain amount of gas into water but the actual amount per minute that it can handle is limited - if you exceed that amount it vents off and you can never replace that water.[ QUOTE ]
All the same applies to alternator charging. The standard alternator and regulator supplied with a new boat are car types because they're cheap! But they are the equivalent of the car charger and won't supply the amps to fully recharge them in a reasonable time. Changing the regulator to a heavy-duty one (you can get one for less than £100 and it doesn't need to be 3-stage or fancy - unless you are using gel batteries) will allow a much quicker charge.

[/ QUOTE ]This is new to me. I have never heard of a 'heavy duty' regulator - what is 'heavy duty' about them and where can one buy them? By their nature, regulators are fairly low current devices as they simply control the field excitation to the alternator.

[ QUOTE ]
I've had decent deep-cycle, sealed lead-acid batteries that have given excellent performance over 7 years by charging them properly and never letting them discharge below 50 per cent - something that is equally important if you want them to last.

[/ QUOTE ]Since you have had a good experience, can you tell us what make of batteries, mains charger and alternator regulator you have? Do you use a Link, BEP or other monitor to ensure that you don't go below 50% charge? What size is your battery bank as a proportion of your daily Ah requirement? This tells us how often you cycle your batteries, the typical depth of discharge, and the rate of discharge - all major factors in the longevity of batteries.
 
Hi DK/Lemain,
thanks for the input above. I'm not in such a bad state as the impression I may have given - the batteries on my 'new' boat were knackered, so I have 2 * AGM house batteries & dedicated AGM starter. I've bought a Dolphin charger from Merlin which was recommended for use with AGM batteries, so I'm happy enough with that even though I havnt compared data from both manufacturers.
I dont have a smart alternator regulator, as I dont have diodes (will be using a VSR when installed - 0 voltage drop, and I'm not sure yet how much benefit I will get from the later stages of a smart alternator regulators cycle in my case).

The items that gave vent to my frustration was a bit of research into Solar regulators to use with a Solar panel for charging my batteries while on a permanent swinging mooring. I've settled on a regulator that I like (Morningstar Prostar with some good input from Lemain above, and my own research on the net), but while it supports AGM batteries the voltages quoted are different from the AGM battery manufacturer (trojan). This is from two very respected manufactures! (although the differences are .3 volt, maybe small enough to not matter).

I'm not asking for specific technical advice here (yet!), although if I get in a bind I may take you up on your kind offer with a quick PM. I dont want to take up peoples time until I have had responses from Trojan and Morningstar, and I take Lemain's point above - I may have to persist until I get through to a genuine engineer on the other end !

many thanks for listening !
 
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