Battery Charging and Charge Controller Setup

[PNjunction]

Ok I was talking with a guy at Deka who makes the AGM batteries I use. He said it was a good idea to exercise the batteries, meaning it's good to take them down to 60-70% frequently and charge them back up and this would help ensure that the batteries get a long and useful life span.

I'll try to do this quick and may have to break it up into smaller replies ...

The number 1 cause of agm failure is UNDERcharging. Sensing your inexperience, he may have dumbed it down a bit just to try and make sure you charge it frequently. It is not necessary to take them down that far, although doing so once in awhile is a good proof-of-performance test. Normally in solar we don't take them below 50% DOD in order to get good cycle life out of them. Only going 25% DOD is even better, and may be impractical and costly doing anything shallower.

So I called the Battery Manufacture and he wasn't familiar with those terms He said not to exceed 14.6 volts, He also said the batteries need to receive 13.8 volts to start charging & Fully charged the batteries would be at 12.8 volts. So i'm not sure what's what can anyone help me define what the Bulk/Absorption/Float/Equalization are?

Heh, they are familiar with those terms, but you may have been speaking to a sales-droid or trainee or someone who just didn't have time to go into it all and just hand out go/no-go values.

You'll want to add these two documents to your maintenance library about Deka / East Penn. Search for the following documents in pdf form:

Valve-Regulated Lead-Acid (VRLA): Gelled electrolyte (gel) and Absorbed Glass Matt (AGM) Batteries. Document 0139.pdf
and
1913 Renewable Energy Charging Parameters Document 1913.pdf

More to come - have to break it up ...

[Svencool]

Ok I was talking with a guy at Deka who makes the AGM batteries I use. He said it was a good idea to exercise the batteries, meaning it's good to take them down to 60-70% frequently and charge them back up and this would help ensure that the batteries get a long and useful life span.

The guy said that I bought charge controller from (Midnite Classic 150) said I needed to know what the Bulk, Absorption, Float & Equalization voltages were to setup the charge controller.

So I called the Battery Manufacture and he wasn't familiar with those terms He said not to exceed 14.6 volts, He also said the batteries need to receive 13.8 volts to start charging & Fully charged the batteries would be at 12.8 volts. So i'm not sure what's what can anyone help me define what the Bulk/Absorption/Float/Equalization are? Dan the guy I bought the charge controller from said with AGM batteries I should set the Equalization voltage to Manual as they really don't need to be equalized true or not?

Mike