[RE-wrenches] Additional Battery Charger

Fri Jun 18 07:29:20 PDT 2010

Hi The load issue with Diesels is most stand by diesels are started once per month, and run for a period of time, this is at light load.  If the Diesel is not worked hard the rings lose there seal ie compression falls and makes them hard to start.  Therefore they are load tested on various schedules for engine and other operating conditions,

Darryl  

--- On Fri, 6/18/10, Mick Abraham <mick at abrahamsolar.com> wrote:

From: Mick Abraham <mick at abrahamsolar.com>
Subject: Re: [RE-wrenches] Additional Battery Charger
To: "RE-wrenches" <re-wrenches at lists.re-wrenches.org>
Date: Friday, June 18, 2010, 7:35 AM

I definitely like to require the generator to work hard for every hour in which we must listen to it, feed fuel to it, etc. (This presupposes that we have plenty of battery to accept genset wattage <minus altitude derations> <minus charger inefficiency> <minus a bit of breathing room for the engine>) 

Also: that 50 hour oil change interval...or 100 hours...or whatever...comes around right regular and we want to wring out lots of watt-hours between service dates. 

******************************

There's an old...dare I say it...wive's tale about diesel machines actually suffering shorter lifetimes if they are not heavily loaded. I think this belief goes way back to WWII days and may not be valid with current engine designs. It's something about the load torque requirement helping to maintain engine compression. Opinions from the List on this theory would be welcomed.

*******************************

Once you have plenty of charger load to throw on the generator, tweak up on the "AC input amps" setting in the Outback Mate or Magnum Remote while listening to the engine. (The battery must not be highly charged during this tweak or else the chargers will be in throttle back mode.) Dial up on the AC input amps setting while also causing major household loads (such as the water pump, washing machine, etc.) to kick in & out. Up, up, up until the generator engine can be heard to struggle beneath the load, then dial back down on the AC input amps until the gennie sounds happy with its work again. 

Jolliness, 

Mick Abraham, Proprietor
www.abrahamsolar.com

Voice: 970-731-4675

On Thu, Jun 17, 2010 at 11:13 PM, benn kilburn <benn at daystarsolar.ca> wrote:

mick, bob,

funny you should mention using a magnum as the 'additional charger', the system owner just happens to still have a MS4448 on the wall from his original system  (we had upgraded his system to a FW1000 with 2 x VFX3648's back in the fall).

i hadn't even thought of using the magnum only as a charger, and the price is right!
thanks for the suggestion, i'll look into this as a possibility.

Any other comments on my question about generator efficiency when fully loaded vs say half loaded?

cheers

benn

DayStar Renewable Energy Inc. 

benn at daystarsolar.ca
780-906-7807 
HAVE A SUNNY DAY 

From: reellison at gmail.com
To: re-wrenches at lists.re-wrenches.org
Date: Thu, 17 Jun 2010 21:19:03 -0400
Subject: Re: [RE-wrenches] Additional Battery Charger

Look into the Magnum inverters as 2nd chargers, very good chargers with generators.

I have done this many times, in the case of failure of the other inverters for some reason, run wires and be back up and running.
I think the 4448 inverter is 60 amps @ 48 volts with an input of 16 or so amps AC.

Later,
Bob 

From: re-wrenches-bounces at lists.re-wrenches.org [mailto:re-wrenches-bounces at lists.re-wrenches.org] On Behalf Of benn kilburn
Sent: Thursday, June 17, 2010 7:22 PM
To: Wrenches
Subject: [RE-wrenches] Additional Battery Charger

G'day Wrenches,

 I'm looking for an additional charger(s) to increase the charging capacity from the back-up 12 kW Onan generator into the 1200 Ah battery.  Right now the generator's full potential output is limited by the charging capacity of the two VFX3648's which have a max charge output of 45A each.

The idea here is to use the generator to its full charging capacity when it is running, taking in to consideration that the generator will feed any AC loads before charging the battery. 

Iota and IBE chargers have been suggested.  Any comments on these or other makes?

Do all generator types (diesel, propane, LNG, gasoline) run more efficiently when fully loaded?  or is this only the case with diesel (so i've heard)?

thanks,

benn
DayStar Renewable Energy Inc. 

benn at daystarsolar.ca

780-906-7807 

HAVE A SUNNY DAY 

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