Cycle Counter

[tuberider]

I have a cycle counter for my battery, I know its works off of voltage but how does it determine when a battery has been cycled. What are the parameters.

[skipmac]

Confess I have never heard of a cycle counter for batteries. Are you not referring to a battery monitor?

Not even sure what a cycle counter would count on a battery. Number of charge/discharges? Then I would have the same question, what are the parameters? What is considered discharged and what would be considered charged?

Maybe a brand name, model or some additional information would help.

[tuberider]

The next time I'm by my cycle counter I'll take a picture and post it.

[a64pilot]

Never seen one either, but it wouldn't be a difficult thing, all you would need is a counter that would set and reset at two voltages, say above 14 and below 12.5 or so. Now that wouldn't necessarily dictate a full charge cycle, just every time your bank fell below 12.5 and then rose above 14
Might be useful for scheduling equalization etc?


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[zboss]

Are you sure its not a bilge counter?

If it IS a battery counter..

Originally Posted by a64pilot

Never seen one either, but it wouldn't be a difficult thing, all you would need is a counter that would set and reset at two voltages, say above 14 and below 12.5 or so.

I called trojan battery to ask what they meant by a cycle and this was their response:

"A cycle is when the batteries are discharged and then fully recharged. Cycles vary in their depth of discharge...for example the batteries could be completely discharged and then recharged or they could be discharged only a small amount and then recharged. There are no specific requirements about the depth of discharge".

I then contacted mastervolt and asked the same question regarding what constituted a cycle in their technology:

"The Mastershunt 500 counts cycles. These cycles are related to the set capacity in the shunt. Example: if you have a batterybank of 200Ah and discharge the batteries fully and re-charge them back up again this is counted as 1 cylce. The shunt also registeres smaller discharges so if you discharge 100Ah and re-charge to full this is put in the memory of the shunt. If you then discharge again 100Ah and re-charge to full the cycle counter will go up again.

So cycles are counted when 100% of the capacity has been used and also when this is done with 10 x 10%."

So clearly, there is no standard for what constitutes a cycle.

[tuberider]

Are you saying that if you discharge to just 100ah and recharge, that it would count as one cycles

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[zboss]

Originally Posted by tuberider

Are you saying that if you discharge to just 100ah and recharge, that it would count as one cycles

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What I am saying is that the manufacturers of the batteries and the manufacturers of the systems that count cycles can't agree on what constitutes a cycle.

According to trojan, if I discharge just 1 Ah from the battery bank and recharge it to full 6 times a day then I have been through 6 cycles.

But with our mastervolt we set the Ah capacity of the batteries. We have 520 Ah (or there about) on paper. That means we can discharge 100 Ah, 100 Ah, 100 Ah, 100 Ah, 100 Ah, and 20 Ah (with recharge after each discharge) before a cycle is registered on the system

So, in Trojan's world, we cycled 6 times but in Mastervolts' world we only cycled 1 time.

[tuberider]

I agree with mastervolt

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[zboss]

Originally Posted by tuberider

I agree with mastervolt

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I can't disagree, so I wonder what Trojan's malfunction is!

[robbo312]

Originally Posted by zboss

I can't disagree, so I wonder what Trojan's malfunction is!

Trojan is correct as with lead acid batteries a "cycle" is where you take is you remove amps and recharge to 100%. You get more cycle's if you discharge less, but it's still a cycle.

Mastervolt's method would work on lithium type batteries as these don't care how much you discharge by, but you would need to keep the battery capacity up to date as I'm guessing it doesn't do it itself. For a cycle count on lead acid batteries it's a meaningless figure.

[skipmac]

Originally Posted by tuberider

I have a cycle counter for my battery, I know its works off of voltage but how does it determine when a battery has been cycled. What are the parameters.

While the thread is offering an interesting discussion on cycles, the original question seems to have been lost.

Did you ever determine what exactly you have on your boat and if it is indeed a battery charging cycle counter?

Regarding what is a cycle. Certainly discharging to any significant degree and then recharging to 100% is a cycle but I think the most accurate way to look at cycles is that there is a range of cycles, deep to shallow. A battery's life will be determined by several factors beyond a very simplistic "how many cycles".

- How many cycles
- How deep each cycle is
- How long a battery sits discharged before being recharged.
- How often the battery is charged to 100%
- Is the battery equalized on a regular basis.
- temp of the environment
- rate of current draw from the battery.
- rate of charge into the battery
- etc, etc etc

This of course doesn't even begin looking at the battery chemistry, construction, etc.