native pepper wrote: Tried them both out on the new lifepo4 pack and very happy, they shut off at 14v, the pack settles down to 13.8v without load, even though one cell line always goes over 3.5v. With a load on them, no cell lines go over and are pretty well balanced.
This is standard behaviour for an Li battery, nothing to do with the controllers. An identical controller behaviour could be built with unlimited throughput capacity using a PL20 or Dingo 20/20 for under the $300 price tag you are suggesting these 40 amp controllers were going to cost...... Is it an advantage to stop charging at 14v and resume charging at 13.6v, not that we have seen over 4 yrs of hands on 24/7 testing in actual RV applications that rely on solar only charging.
T1 Terry
A person may fail many times, they only become a failure when they blame someone else John Burrows
Those who struggle to become a leader, rarely know a clear direction forward for anyone but themselves
T.I.Terry - our $80 40amp evilbay charger goes via the PL40 input, along with the the solar feed,and never plays up atall.
A good Australian built product that does what it says it will do, can't ask for more than that eh
A person may fail many times, they only become a failure when they blame someone else John Burrows
Those who struggle to become a leader, rarely know a clear direction forward for anyone but themselves
Never said the pack settling to 13.8v had anything to do with the solar controller and I'm sure someone with the technical knowledge and expertise, could make whatever they wanted to maintain a lifepo4 pack.
But for people like me, who have no idea of how to understand the technical configurations of a charge controller, these charge controllers are excellent for my needs and for many other normal Australians.
As to whether the charge parameters are an advantage or not, is not my worry but those that designed them and as they are fully in the industry and not just a wanna be, prefer their many years of on hands installation and service experience.
These controllers are expensive compared to what you can buy on ebay, but the cheapies on ebay are for lead acid and not lifepo4 and probably couldn't handle the bulk input required. I could have followed my late mate and used relay switches attached to cell voltage alarms and switched off that way, but with these it's just a matter of plugging in the wiring and that's it. The relay direction is too complicated and time consuming for me, much rather spend it playing music or doing something useful.
As Lifpeo4 becomes more main stream, prices for charge controllers will go down naturally and will probably get to below $100. Until that time, people like me like the idea of just plugging one in and not having to worry about all the bits and pieces needed to watch a system, that may require manual manipulation to keep in balance and under control.
I find it rather pathetic when the so called knowledgeable have to put down others approaches that work, seems to be a rather infantile approach to creating harmony and understanding. Or maybe they demand everything to revolve around them and was asked to provide my experience with these charge controllers. Probably better to shut up and say nothing, which is easy to do and would satisfy the bent ego's, so won't mention them again or anything to do with technology.
Thought this was a nice forum, how wrong can one be.
native pepper wrote:I find it rather pathetic ... Probably better to shut up and say nothing, which is easy to do and would satisfy the bent ego's, so won't mention them again or anything to do with technology.
Thought this was a nice forum, how wrong can one be.
Sheesh. Maybe there's something going on behind the scene here? Nothing that I can see warrants such a reaction.
Ouch!!!! I'll just tuck my head under my arm and take myself off to casualty and see if they can stitch it back on
Fortunately I have enough experience with system installation to not be offended by the "wanna be" snipe, I think a Google search for T1 Terry will show a few more responses than ...... I actually haven't got a clue who they are except Slowhand's sons.
The major issue was the commercial plug for the controllers so I simply mentioned that a more sophisticated and Aust made product was already available on the market at a better price, sorry if that upset you but life can be like that......
T1 Terry
A person may fail many times, they only become a failure when they blame someone else John Burrows
Those who struggle to become a leader, rarely know a clear direction forward for anyone but themselves
"tanks" here---
I thought that I was on another forum for a bit there.
Keith.
I'm now 87 years old, having experienced another birthday, and I'm still living in WA, single (gave up looking), white hair, no teeth, no money, no worries.
I plan to have another birthday next year.
Shirley wrote:I enjoyed reading Native Pepper's posts re his set up found them very interesting, good to read his results.
She Shirley, not he, but I guess she will forgive you.
T1 Terry
A person may fail many times, they only become a failure when they blame someone else John Burrows
Those who struggle to become a leader, rarely know a clear direction forward for anyone but themselves
