Solar charger setting

[sailorboy1]

I currently have my solar controller set to hold absorption for 1 hour at 14.6V. I wonder if there would any danger or plus/minus to just set it to 14.4V till it either can not be held due to the sun or till amps get to 0.5% capacity.

These are 6V wet cell so there is a con of needing to check the water level more often. But I bet after a while I learn how often they are going to need water (currently they need water about every 3 months).

[monte]

Check the battery recommendations. Do they state a time to be held at absorption? I think ours states 6hrs at 14.8V

[sailorboy1]

never seen a time limit, but probably couldn't really ever get 6 hours

[daletournier]

Hi, I'm also interested in others opinions regarding this. I have US 6v deep cycle. I find the morningstar duo charge way to conservative, seems to get to float mode way to quick. It has a custom charge setting which I can alter through computer. In this mode I can disable float therefore it will stay in absorbtion mode 14.4v. Is this a problem? When I leave the boat I can just flick a dip switch that will take charge profile back to standard conservative settings. Thoughts?
Cheers Dale.

[sailorboy1]

Well I changed my solar controller to stay at 14.6V absorption for 4 hours or if it gets to only 2 amps (less than 0.5%). So far I'm not sure if it is making any improvement to battery state of charge over than just holding it for 1 hour. I can tell it did do the 4 hours at least 5 days last week from the controller history log. But I can not think of any really negative to do this.

[Hkalan]

Hello,

I have the 6v US Batteries 2200 series, and a MornngStar TS-60 MPPT with 1,200w of solar panels. The house bank is 24v.

The US Battery specs say they can accept an absorb stage constant current of 3% of C/20 rate for 2-3 hours.

I have my Morningstar set to battery type 5 (14.6v absorb or 29.2 in my case) and the 1 hour time seems to work fine. When the sun sets, my bank is at 25.4v. Remember that if today you don't get a full absorb time, tomorrow it will allow 1.5 hours. That is the max time for absorb using setting 5.

I live full time, and work from my computer on the boat, without any shore power connected, and I have not turned on the gen for charging for over a year (only on for monthly maintenance). My 464ah US battery house bank is very happy with the basic settings of Battery type 5 on the dip switches of the Morningstar.

Hope I was helpful !!

Alan

[Hkalan]

Oh...

I forgot. The 25.4v when the sun goes down, is with the 288L full size fridge/freezer, Mac mini, and 4,000w inverter on. When not under a load when the sun sets. The bank is between 25.6v to a max of 25.9v.

It took about 6 months for the batteries to break in and start to work together and maintain a constant charge and discharge voltage.

According to my battery monitor. I have had 11 cycles in 1 year, and 0 full discharges. Typhoon season and the lack of sunshine is to blame LOL. We are really power conscious when the sky's are grey !!

I am planning my first equalise of the batteries with the Morningstar in June. That will be 14 months since the bank and controller went online. US Battery distributor here recommended that. They warranty the batteries, so I Obey LOL.

Morningstar and US batteries seem to work well for us.

The batteries never seem to get hotter then 30C in the hottest summer day, and never below 12C on the coldest day here.

Good luck !

Alan

[Stu Jackson]

There was a long discussion about this just recently, and Maine Sail suggested increasing the absorption time. I'll see if I can find it.

[Stu Jackson]

Here: http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/...hy-166096.html

All three pages.

Good luck.