Lifeline vs. Trojan Charging speed

[mitiempo]

Trojan recommends 10% of C as a charger that will do, not as a maximum. The battery is the determining factor. At a given voltage it determines the current it will accept, not the charger. A charger cannot be too large.

From Trojan:

[colemj]

Originally Posted by sailinglegend

I quote Btrayfors:

At 50% SOC, the maximum acceptance rate is just over 1xCA or just over 100 amps for a 100AH AGM battery

This is exactly what I said.

Trojan recommend a 10 amp charge rate - see their literature - there can be no argument with that.

Sometimes I just don't understand what planet you are on!

If you read and understood what they are saying, you would find that while AGM's accept that charge at first, they quickly reach limiting voltage and that charge decreases. The time to 100% SOC is much longer than a 1C acceptance rate calculation would give you.

You said "so Lifelines can charger very much faster than Trojans" - it is that part that I, and the data, disagree with.

Look at Bill's last graph and tell me what you see there.

Trojan recommends their FLA charge current be 0.1-0.13C and their AGM charge current to be 0.2C (this is from their user guide literature). Frankly, I think both those numbers are incorrect and both should be a bit higher.

However, in practice, hardly anyone can achieve more than 0.25C regardless of battery type. So your argument, even if it was correct, is meaningless in practice.

Now, how does a modest solar array put more amp hours into an AGM than a FLA?

Mark

[sailinglegend]

Originally Posted by colemj

If you read and understood what they are saying......

That's your trouble...

Th OP's question and the title of this thread was; Lifeline vs. Trojan Charging speed...not Trojan AGMs vs Trojan FLAs charging speed.

And I note you even disagree with Trojan's published user guide figures. Why should anyone ever take you seriously?

[mitiempo]

As long as the charging current is at or above the maximum the battery will accept - ie 20% of C for a flooded battery - then any available current over that amount makes no difference. In other words if a 100 AH battery will accept 20 amps of current (in bulk charging) it makes no difference if you have a charger that outputs 21 amps or 200 amps of current. The battery determines what it will accept for a given voltage. The only way to get a battery to accept more current is to increase the voltage.


While an AGM battery will accept more current in bulk the last 15% or so will take many hours as the internal resistance increases - same as with a flooded battery.

[colemj]

Originally Posted by sailinglegend

That's your trouble...

Th OP's question and the title of this thread was; Lifeline vs. Trojan Charging speed...not Trojan AGMs vs Trojan FLAs charging speed.

And I note you even disagree with Trojan's published user guide figures. Why should anyone ever take you seriously?

I don't understand this post. The Trojan guidelines came up because you attributed someone else's post content to me. As has been pointed out to you, their actual specific charger recommendation is just how I described it should be - a bit higher than that published in their general user guide.

I don't see how what I posted was off the OP topic. In fact, I directly address the OP's post - it was you who took it for a wander. I then address some of that wander for accuracy.

Can you supply 1C to your battery bank? What does that last graph of Bill's tell you about time to full charge at different charging rates? How does a solar array put more Ahrs into an AGM over a FLA?

I am answering all questions you ask me…

Mark

[colemj]

Originally Posted by zboss

This is pretty much what I thought. We have 520 amp hours of trojan t-145's with 527 watts of solar and a wind generator. We use between 75 and 110 amps during the night (define as when the amps going in moved from positive to negative and the back again) and it usually takes us till about 3 or 4 PM (on bright sunny days) to get back to zero consumed.

I hear folks say they are full at noon (consuming same amp hours) with solar half my watts and no wind generator so I have to wonder... is it truly an AGM vs. flooded difference?

You are charging with solar at ~0.05C, so it is impossible at this rate for AGM's to accept more current faster than FLA's.

No matter what others here tell you.

As for those folks who are "full" at noon, I find the majority of cruisers do not have a handle on their battery banks with regards to SOC. I wouldn't trust anecdotal comments without verifying exactly how they come to their conclusion that they are "full".

Also keep in mind that getting back to your "zero consumed" also takes into account the amount consumed during this period.

Mark

[sailinglegend]

Originally Posted by mitiempo

As long as the charging current is at or above the maximum the battery will accept - ie 20% of C for a flooded battery - then any available current over that amount makes no difference...

I totally agree with your posting!

I should point out that an FLA battery CAN take much more than 20%C. See Mr Sterling's advanced battery testing where he puts 160 amps into a 100 amp FLA and doesn't seem too worried that the battery gets up to 50C! All this to prove his chargers can fast charge a battery better than anybody else's chargers, ignoring manufacturers charging recommendations. The man is an idiot!

Link-:http://www.sterling-power.com/images...edcharging.pdf

This is why you should size the charger so that you don't have more than about 25%C of current available with FLAs.

[mitiempo]

[QUOTE=sailinglegend;1572264]....and doesn't seem too worried that the battery gets up to 50C! All this to prove his chargers can fast charge a battery better than anybody else's chargers, ignoring manufacturers charging recommendations. The man is an idiot!

I agree. I would always listen to a reputable battery manufacturer over a charger manufacturer/marketer.

[mitiempo]

Originally Posted by sailinglegend

This is why you should size the charger so that you don't have more than about 25%C of current available with FLAs.

I disagree with this. While you want a minimum for efficient charging there is no maximum. The battery is the determining factor not the charging current. A charger cannot be too large.

[colemj]

Originally Posted by sailinglegend

I totally agree with your posting!

I should point out that an FLA battery CAN take much more than 20%C. See Mr Sterling's advanced battery testing where he puts 160 amps into a 100 amp FLA and doesn't seem too worried that the battery gets up to 50C! All this to prove his chargers can fast charge a battery better than anybody else's chargers, ignoring manufacturers charging recommendations. The man is an idiot!

Link-:http://www.sterling-power.com/images...edcharging.pdf

This is why you should size the charger so that you don't have more than about 25%C of current available with FLAs.

Good lord, this is getting tedious. You did not understand anything at all about what was presented in that study. Your conclusions here are opposite of those of the study. His study results support those of Balmar's and others, and is exactly how good voltage regulators and battery chargers work. It is also how Trojan recommends their batteries to be charged.

Just one example of poor comprehension - he shows the batteries reaching 32C, not 50C. 50C was just the temperature in which he claims battery damage would occur, not the temperature the batteries actually reached.

I won't debate the points because they are so obvious to anyone who wants to read that study.

I will point out that for someone who cries to the moderators so often about postings that do not call you names or attack you personally, you do seem to like using pejoratives yourself.

Mark

[colemj]

Originally Posted by mitiempo

I agree. I would always listen to a reputable battery manufacturer over a charger manufacturer/marketer.

To be clear, the linked article was about charging FLA batteries at 14.4-14.8V absorption points instead of <14.0V that internally regulated alternators provide. There is nothing really new in it, and what he presents is how all external regulators and battery chargers work, and what battery manufacturers recommend.

Nowhere does he "push" current into the battery - he simply holds the voltage at 14.8V using a large power supply that can provide more current than the battery can take.

The battery itself is regulating the current uptake - as you pointed out in other posts.

Mark

[mitiempo]

Originally Posted by colemj

To be clear, the linked article was about charging FLA batteries at 14.4-14.8V absorption points instead of <14.0V that internally regulated alternators provide.
Mark

Most internally regulated alts are 14.4 as are any AC chargers on the FLA setting. 13.8 hasn't been common for many years.

Trojan's recommendation is 14.8 volts.

[colemj]

Originally Posted by mitiempo

Most internally regulated alts are 14.4 as are any AC chargers on the FLA setting. 13.8 hasn't been common for many years.

Trojan's recommendation is 14.8 volts.

Our internally regulated alternator is set at 14.0V. That article has been around for many years - the whole point of it was to help people accept the fact that charging at higher voltages (back then) will not harm their batteries.

Between our 2005 Trojan bank and our 2011 bank, Trojan's absorption recommendation changed from 14.4V to 14.8V, so it seems like they agree with Sterling's point.

Mark

[zboss]

My mastervolt monitor/shunt is showing a "Calculated Charge Efficiency" of 88% for our 520 Amp hours of Trojan T-145Plus.

We were "full up" yesterday. After reaching this state yesterday, I updated the the Masterview shunt so that is will only consider the system being "full" when it reaches 0.5% of battery capacity vs. 1.0% capacity. The shunt will signal "full" when the total amps going into the battery falls below that % provided the system has reached at least the float voltage (in my case 13.2).

So, I guess I am still looking for definitive evidence that AGM's (from a charge efficiency factor) would be a better option for our solar... for rainy/cloudy days. I'm going to go read Mainesails article about combining battery types to see what is said there.

FYI, the reason I am specifically interested in lifeline vs. trojan is that the vendor that installed the system originally recommended Lifeline AGM's but the price difference was significant and I had heard such awesome things about Trojan FLA's. Plus Trojan seems to have a reasonable world wide distribution network, so if we eventually do go further then we should be able to keep replacing the batteries with Trojans.

Of course, once we get down to $3 an amp-hour for Lithium we will be going in that direction

[Maine Sail]

Originally Posted by sailinglegend

I totally agree with your posting!

I should point out that an FLA battery CAN take much more than 20%C. See Mr Sterling's advanced battery testing where he puts 160 amps into a 100 amp FLA and doesn't seem too worried that the battery gets up to 50C! All this to prove his chargers can fast charge a battery better than anybody else's chargers, ignoring manufacturers charging recommendations. The man is an idiot!

Link-:http://www.sterling-power.com/images...edcharging.pdf

This is why you should size the charger so that you don't have more than about 25%C of current available with FLAs.

I find that quite rude.....

The man is absolutely not an idiot. He has designed some terrific products over the years. I have had at length conversations with him and he knows his stuff.. He is however a very "crafty" marketer but that does not make him an idiot as an EE...

BTW the batteries in that test never hit 50C so more careful reading might be in order before calling him an idiot...... He also used thin plate batts that we don't use in the marine environment and that is not something I think he mentions..

Throwing that much current at a thick plate flooded lead acid batts only brings it to absorption voltage quickly then the battery determines the current.

It is no secret that higher voltages mean faster charging for all batteries but it has to be done within reason........