Battery monitor puzzle with LiFePO bank

[Canuck Sailor]

Stu Jackson:
Thanks for the Gotcha article. I have read it twice and will read it once more to see how I can use the information. My battery monitor is hooked up to my Solar Charge controller so I have to figure out how that will work. I know that when I charge with the Balmar 614 that I end up showing full battery when it is shut down but that is with the SCC monitor??? I will also have to figure that one out. Cliff

[Canuck Sailor]

Gary:
Yes, it looks like a charging problem but I think Stu may have another explanation because the monitoring system controls the charging. I know I have more than enough wattage coming in to bring the battery up to 100% but the monitoring of it may be hindering the charging.
I just defrosted my fridge and turned it on about 11:30 after having used 57 AH over night. It showed 100% -00 AH at noon. I adjusted the voltage of the float to 14.5V with Maximum voltage at 14.6V and acceptance at 14.5V as well. I have a current adjustment for float but that is set at 2.0V/100A. I am not sure of Stu's suggestion of 1.0V/100A.
I can set my charge efficiency at any % rate fixed or automatic. It was on automatic and it showed 91% when I just changed it to 94% as per Stu's suggestion. I will monitor it to see what happens. I am not sure that Stu's suggestion is relevant to LiFePo4 battery or not as he doesn't mention anything.
Cliff

[matureee]

Originally Posted by matureee

Just a thought here I use a venerable link 2000 and it does not autosynch its parameters unless I discharge the battery to a set discharge level. You are doing very shallow cycles for your capacity. Xantrax do state that you should do a full charge discharge cycle (whatever that means) in order to synchronize the device.

I have seen a suggestion that the xantrax lite and link 2000 use the same algorithms in which case you would need to discharge your batteries by at least 10% of the declared capacity before it will resynch.

[Maine Sail]

Originally Posted by Canuck Sailor

Gary:
Yes, it looks like a charging problem but I think Stu may have another explanation because the monitoring system controls the charging. I know I have more than enough wattage coming in to bring the battery up to 100% but the monitoring of it may be hindering the charging.
I just defrosted my fridge and turned it on about 11:30 after having used 57 AH over night. It showed 100% -00 AH at noon. I adjusted the voltage of the float to 14.5V with Maximum voltage at 14.6V and acceptance at 14.5V as well. I have a current adjustment for float but that is set at 2.0V/100A. I am not sure of Stu's suggestion of 1.0V/100A.
I can set my charge efficiency at any % rate fixed or automatic. It was on automatic and it showed 91% when I just changed it to 94% as per Stu's suggestion. I will monitor it to see what happens. I am not sure that Stu's suggestion is relevant to LiFePo4 battery or not as he doesn't mention anything.
Cliff

You're doing this with LiFePO4....?

[Gary H]

Canuck, I am by no means an expert but I am pretty sure that you have the charging voltages set way too high for LiFePO4. my acceptance charge is set to 14. 0 volts. For float, I drop it to 13.2 volts to stop the flow of current. I have the pro remote controller as well, but have never had any success using it as a battery monitor.

[Stu Jackson]

Originally Posted by Canuck Sailor

1 but I think Stu may have another explanation because the monitoring system controls the charging.

2 I am not sure that Stu's suggestion is relevant to LiFePo4 battery or not as he doesn't mention anything.
Cliff

1 Not necessarily. In MY case, yes, but that's NOT what the GOTCHA article is about. It is about how to avoid the MONTIOR, not necessarily the charging source (but could be, too, depending on your system) showing a prematurely full bank. In the article, Rich manually charges his bank with a generator.

2 It is not related to any particular type of bank. The VOLTAGES ARE WHAT'S IMPORTANT TO DIFFERENT TYPES OF BANKS. Not the monitor, which is counting amp hours, actually kWhr, converted back to ahs.

What the entire concept is about is to change the default parameters to avoid showing a prematurely full bank, regardless of battery chemistry.

If you can't change one of the three, then you can't, but that's also covered in the text, which is the difference between a Link Lite and a Link 2000, for example.

I know it's long, and I know Maine Sail wrote up a shorter explanation, but I wrote that and expanded on it when I got input from one of our skippers with a Link Lite. All the coulomb counters use the same algorithms, as far as I know. Input received has basically been, "Thanks, but I have to read it again." Yes, it takes a few go-arounds to understand.

Good luck.