Battery Charger Options [RE-wrenches]

[Travis Creswell, Ozark Solar]

Hello All,

I am in need of a battery charger that I can precisely adjust the
voltage and amperage on.  120 volt AC input, 12 volt nominal DC output.
5 amps minimum, 20 amps or more would be even better.  It needs to be
able to get up to at least 15.5 volts and stay there so I can equalize
the battery.

The reason I'm looking is that I've had a few newer (less than 4 yrs)
Concorde AGM's fall on their face lately and Advanced Power Products is
telling me that they need equalized.  These batteries are in float mode
hooked up to SW's.  Any body had similar problems?  I've got quite a few
Concordes out there is similar situations and it looks like they all
might be needing some attention real soon.

I was able to use an MX60 charge controller to equalize one battery for
an about 30 minutes and the initial results are very promising.  Before
the short equalize the battery would go from 12.7 volts to 6 volts with
a 2 amp load.  After words it would hold a 40 amp load for at least a
few minutes. Problem is that they want me to do an 8 hour equalize which
is a little hard to do with a solar array in the winter.

I assume that if I hooked up a 24 volt battery to the PV side of the
MX60 and tried to output 15 volts that the magic smoke would come out of
the MX60.  Anybody want to loan me one of theirs so I can try?

If I had a SW 2512 just sitting around I could use it by just adjusting
the float voltage up to the voltage I want.  I'm sure an Outback 12 volt
VFX would do the same thing for me but both are just little more money
than I'd like to spend.

What about a power supply?  Can they be hooked up to batteries?  I can
find several 0-18v, 0-5 amp, on the internet for less than $200 bucks.

Thanks for any suggestions in advance.

Travis Creswell
Ozark Energy Services, Inc.

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