Your thoughts??
Last spring I installed a new charger (Victron centaur 12volt 30 amp), new 260 amp hour main battery bank connected to another new 80 amp hour bank via a blue seas ACR. I also replaced all of my primary wiring for a clean installation. I set the charger for (LA) flooded batteries and all spring and summer this system worked perfectly for my needs. Thanks again for Mainesails help and his earlier thread on charger installations:
http://forums.catalina.sailboatowne...p=880275&highlight=installing battery charger
The charger was set for flooded batteries and the charger continued to charge in the bulk/absorption phase correctly at a rock steady 14.5 volts as per the charger manual and reduce to 13.5 volts in the float mode.
The boat was hauled in mid October and the charger (if I remember correctly) worked just as before in the spring and summer off the AC outlets located throughout the yard. Hurricane/Superstorm Sandy hit and the marina late October and the AC outlets were no more. "Blitz" somehow survived the storm but out came my new Yamaha EF2000iS suitcase style generator for my charging needs. This is where things got weird but not sure if just a coincidence or not.
The charger now was observed at charging up to 14.85 volts in the bulk phase. I was of course concerned with my batteries being damaged. Some things I checked:
1) I checked each of the cells of te batteries to insure cells were ok.
2) I checked the wiring connections and sizing numerous times.
3) I contacted Victron but they are stumped and have basically said it is normal and I should change the setting to a different battery type to get a lower charge voltages
.
I tried different settings for the dip switches to check the charger and they all were greater than specified in the manual. As noted the flooded charge voltages was 14.85 instead of 14.5 volts, the gel setting was noted as 14.5 volts instead of 14.2, and the AGM setting was at 14.67 volts instead of 14.35.
I not writing this to knock Victron in any way, as a matter of fact their service tech worked with me for the past three weeks trying some things, measuring voltages, and giving advice. It looks like now I'm at a point however to send it back for some bench testing at a facility local to me as specified by Victron. I'm hoping they will find a problem even though the voltages I noted to them over the past few weeks seemed fine to Victron even though they were outside their manual specified levels.
The Victron centaur charger are not temperature compensated in te tradition sense unless it somehow detects it through the charging wires since there isn't a seperate lead but noted as a internal temperature sensor. Temperature since the storm has been in the 50s down to the 20s but charge voltages seemed to stay steadily high and consistent.
http://www.victronenergy.com/upload/documents/Datasheet - Centaur Charger - rev 03 - EN.pdf
Has anyone seen similar problems? Has anyone seen a problem with the use of suitcase style inverter generators like this?
Thanks
Last spring I installed a new charger (Victron centaur 12volt 30 amp), new 260 amp hour main battery bank connected to another new 80 amp hour bank via a blue seas ACR. I also replaced all of my primary wiring for a clean installation. I set the charger for (LA) flooded batteries and all spring and summer this system worked perfectly for my needs. Thanks again for Mainesails help and his earlier thread on charger installations:
http://forums.catalina.sailboatowne...p=880275&highlight=installing battery charger
The charger was set for flooded batteries and the charger continued to charge in the bulk/absorption phase correctly at a rock steady 14.5 volts as per the charger manual and reduce to 13.5 volts in the float mode.
The boat was hauled in mid October and the charger (if I remember correctly) worked just as before in the spring and summer off the AC outlets located throughout the yard. Hurricane/Superstorm Sandy hit and the marina late October and the AC outlets were no more. "Blitz" somehow survived the storm but out came my new Yamaha EF2000iS suitcase style generator for my charging needs. This is where things got weird but not sure if just a coincidence or not.
The charger now was observed at charging up to 14.85 volts in the bulk phase. I was of course concerned with my batteries being damaged. Some things I checked:
1) I checked each of the cells of te batteries to insure cells were ok.
2) I checked the wiring connections and sizing numerous times.
3) I contacted Victron but they are stumped and have basically said it is normal and I should change the setting to a different battery type to get a lower charge voltages
.I tried different settings for the dip switches to check the charger and they all were greater than specified in the manual. As noted the flooded charge voltages was 14.85 instead of 14.5 volts, the gel setting was noted as 14.5 volts instead of 14.2, and the AGM setting was at 14.67 volts instead of 14.35.
I not writing this to knock Victron in any way, as a matter of fact their service tech worked with me for the past three weeks trying some things, measuring voltages, and giving advice. It looks like now I'm at a point however to send it back for some bench testing at a facility local to me as specified by Victron. I'm hoping they will find a problem even though the voltages I noted to them over the past few weeks seemed fine to Victron even though they were outside their manual specified levels.
The Victron centaur charger are not temperature compensated in te tradition sense unless it somehow detects it through the charging wires since there isn't a seperate lead but noted as a internal temperature sensor. Temperature since the storm has been in the 50s down to the 20s but charge voltages seemed to stay steadily high and consistent.
http://www.victronenergy.com/upload/documents/Datasheet - Centaur Charger - rev 03 - EN.pdf
Has anyone seen similar problems? Has anyone seen a problem with the use of suitcase style inverter generators like this?
Thanks
