Time It Takes To FULLY Charge Batteries

[StuM]

Originally Posted by s/v Jedi

Here’s something that people don’t understand: they claim that although you are charging the batteries, the energy consumers like refrigeration keep drawing from the batteries as well.

No, they are not. When you are charging your batteries, charge current will go into the batteries and none comes out.

The refrigeration is powered by the solar controller or by the battery charger. The easiest way to remember this is: the source with highest voltage wins and powers everything else... as long as that load allows it to continue to be the highest voltage source.

Waddya mean "people"?
Didn't I say the same thing in post #6 ?

[a64pilot]

OK, guys read this article.
https://marinehowto.com/how-fast-can...ry-be-charged/
It is where I cut the attached screen image from, notice how long it took to get a battery from 50% to 85% SOC, one hour but it took a full six hours to get it to fully charged. So to go from 85% SOC to 100% SOC with a charger that’s big enough so that your current limited takes 5 hours.
This is with a .4C Charger, very few have enough Solar to charge at .4C and smaller just takes longer, but a big charge source doesn’t help as much as you may think, that’s also in the article.
I know you guys don’t want to believe that, because you have this little magic box that tells you what you want to hear.

Don’t believe battery monitors, They lie.

Or said another way, garbage in, garbage out

So if you wake up with a bank only depleted by 10%, your still not getting to fully charged by noon, not unless your so far North in Summer that you have usable Solar by 6 or maybe even 7 AM.
Remember the sun may rise at 06:30, but your not getting a decent amount of Solar power until likely at least 9 AM.

I say decent Solar power is enough to cover house loads and get you close to absorption voltage.
Now you don’t have to ever get to absorption voltage to get a full charge, but it takes longer if you don’t.

[sailorboy1]

Almost time to break out the popcorn

[daletournier]

Originally Posted by a64pilot

OK, guys read this article.
https://marinehowto.com/how-fast-can...ry-be-charged/
It is where I cut the attached screen image from, notice how long it took to get a battery from 50% to 85% SOC, one hour but it took a full six hours to get it to fully charged. So to go from 85% SOC to 100% SOC with a charger that’s big enough so that your current limited takes 5 hours.
This is with a .4C Charger, very few have enough Solar to charge at .4C and smaller just takes longer, but a big charge source doesn’t help as much as you may think, that’s also in the article.
I know you guys don’t want to believe that, because you have this little magic box that tells you what you want to hear.

Don’t believe battery monitors, They lie.

Or said another way, garbage in, garbage out

So if you wake up with a bank only depleted by 10%, your still not getting to fully charged by noon, not unless your so far North in Summer that you have usable Solar by 6 or maybe even 7 AM.
Remember the sun may rise at 06:30, but your not getting a decent amount of Solar power until likely at least 9 AM.

I say decent Solar power is enough to cover house loads and get you close to absorption voltage.
Now you don’t have to ever get to absorption voltage to get a full charge, but it takes longer if you don’t.

Here's the problem with the mainsail article "it's not real world".

I think the term "cruising full " is a more appropriate way to look at batteries BUT of course this definition is subjective.

What I've seen out here is few know as much about house battery health as I do AND I know little relative to some of you guys, and nothing compared to mainsail.

I've read the articles like above and tried to be that "100%" full guy, I get the end amp thing etc BUT as times gone by I'm now a "cruising full" type of guy...why?

One eg, a mate of mine ,quite a technical guy that has circumnavigated but never gets his Trojans 100% full although believes he does, he still got 8 years out of them before deciding to replace them..., yer sure the original 900ah by the time he replaced them was probably about 200ah BUT the lights went on every night and that's all he cared about.

My point is most out here no little about charging parameters ,they go by the little amp counter and most get by just fine.

One of my solar regs is now stuck in default, this results in my T105's never seeing more than 14.3v during absorption not the 14.8v trojan recommends. That would of drove me nuts once, now I'm not concerned, I check the sp once a week and they are doing fine, I may only get 6 years out of them ,not 8 ....big deal.

PSOC is just part of cruising life.

[kmacdonald]

Originally Posted by sailorboy1

Almost time to break out the popcorn

You can do better than popcorn. Figured you'd pour a little gasoline on it.

[john manning]

Originally Posted by kmacdonald

Yes it is. They don't have to be fully charged to avoid premature failure. Same as lithium but less strenuous charging requirements.

I'm not sure of the differences between lithium and fireflys in regards to depth of discharge.

I have looked at buying lead/carbon batteries like Firefly. The three suppliers I found specified maximum discharge levels between 70 and 75%. They all claimed to have eliminated sulphation so I did not understand why they set this limit.

[s/v Jedi]

Originally Posted by StuM

Waddya mean "people"?
Didn't I say the same thing in post #6 ?

Are you people? I’m not...

[Icarus]

Originally Posted by sailorboy1

I am not going to argue with people about their batteries, because why should/would I care?

But, what does "holds at 12.8V for a while after the solar input is 0" matter far as a measurement of the batteries getting to 100%? I don't believe it means much of anything.

You are pretty much spot on

[StuM]

Originally Posted by s/v Jedi

Are you people? I’m not...

I am the people—the mob—the crowd—the mass.
Do you know that all the great work of the world is done through me?

I am the workingman, the inventor, the maker of the world’s food and clothes.

I am the audience that witnesses history. The Napoleons come from me and the Lincolns. They die. And then I send forth more Napoleons and Lincolns.

I am the seed ground. I am a prairie that will stand for much plowing. Terrible storms pass over me. I forget. The best of me is sucked out and wasted. I forget. Everything but Death comes to me and makes me work and give up what I have. And I forget.

Sometimes I growl, shake myself and spatter a few red drops for history to remember. Then—I forget.

When I, the People, learn to remember, when I, the People, use the lessons of yesterday and no longer forget who robbed me last year, who played me for a fool—then there will be no speaker in all the world say the name: “The People,” with any fleck of a sneer in his voice or any far-off smile of derision.

The mob—the crowd—the mass—will arrive then.

[Capt Gill]

Originally Posted by StuM

I am the people—the mob—the crowd—the mass.
Do you know that all the great work of the world is done through me?

I am the workingman, the inventor, the maker of the world’s food and clothes.

I am the audience that witnesses history. The Napoleons come from me and the Lincolns. They die. And then I send forth more Napoleons and Lincolns.

I am the seed ground. I am a prairie that will stand for much plowing. Terrible storms pass over me. I forget. The best of me is sucked out and wasted. I forget. Everything but Death comes to me and makes me work and give up what I have. And I forget.

Sometimes I growl, shake myself and spatter a few red drops for history to remember. Then—I forget.

When I, the People, learn to remember, when I, the People, use the lessons of yesterday and no longer forget who robbed me last year, who played me for a fool—then there will be no speaker in all the world say the name: “The People,” with any fleck of a sneer in his voice or any far-off smile of derision.

The mob—the crowd—the mass—will arrive then.

What a fitting end to this thread - well said!

[gamayun]

What voltage do you people let the AGMs discharge to before charging? Asking for myself as I'm working out an issue related to charging. In other words, what's your critical 50% point? Lifeline says 12.2 v. But if solar ain't doing it, do you run auxiliary power at that point to get some charge in or do you let it discharge a little more? If so, how low and how often is this acceptable to you?

[Tonali99]

Basic rule of power supply. without suplemental source as backup, it will take as long to charge as it did to discgarge. With everything shut off.
If you're pulling power at the same time, you'll never get there.
Full charge, new 13.7 volts min. no drain.

[sailorboy1]

For my FLA I also used 12.2V/50%. If that happened at night underway I would run the engine a while. If during the day I knew they were going to drop to that (I normally would take action by 70%) I would run the engine or battery charger off the generator. But if using the engine or battery charger I would always stop once the battery acceptance starting dropping off. This was just a temp measure till the sun was going to be out again for a full charge.

[s/v Jedi]

You can not use voltage. Instead, use the SOC value on your battery monitor, it shows you the exact percentage.

When you have full batteries and run the microwave, the voltage may show 11.8V but the batteries are still full.

[StuM]

Originally Posted by Tonali99

Basic rule of power supply. without suplemental source as backup, it will take as long to charge as it did to discgarge.

So if I have a constant 1 Amp load on a 100Ah battery and run it down from 100% to 50%, it will take 50 hours to charge?
And if I pull 50 Amps out of it for half an hour, it will only take half an hour to charge back up?

If you're pulling power at the same time, you'll never get there.

So if I'm drawing 5 Amps house load and I have a 30 Amp smart charger, I cant charge my batteries?



Somehow I doubt your claims.