Now you understand the issue. There are adjustments inside the XADC. My goal was to test AS_IS first. It is my feeling that if the MFG sells something it should work as advertised with AGM or WET Cell.
I have the skills to modify circuits and tweak voltages but many on this forum and others that purchase these units don't. And if they run into certain issues they are stuck....Randy at BestConverter and the tech's at PD etc beat their heads against the wall dealing with this issue all the time.
Cal, check your PM's, I sent you one a couple of days ago.
Jim
Jim-
I don't believe it's bad advertisement by the converter manufacturers. The problem is with the consumers who buy agm batteries.
This link states agm batteries must be charged to at least 14.4V. The XADC60 clearly states it charges to 14.2V. Obviously this charger is not designed for agm batteries and should not be used with them. The sales people who sell these batteries should be telling their customers they need a new charger when purchasing agm batteries.
Hurricaner wrote: I don't understand the voltage issue, what difference does the at rest voltage make? If anything AGMs recommend a lower charging voltage not higher. I also do not understand the complaint that the charger was not functioning as advertised when the graphs you posted clearly show it is, please clarify.
Now you understand the issue. There are adjustments inside the XADC. My goal was to test AS_IS first. It is my feeling that if the MFG sells something it should work as advertised with AGM or WET Cell.
I have the skills to modify circuits and tweak voltages but many on this forum and others that purchase these units don't. And if they run into certain issues they are stuck....Randy at BestConverter and the tech's at PD etc beat their heads against the wall dealing with this issue all the time.
Cal, check your PM's, I sent you one a couple of days ago.
Jim
Jim-
I don't believe it's bad advertisement by the converter manufacturers. The problem is with the consumers who buy agm batteries.
This link states agm batteries must be charged to at least 14.4V. The XADC60 clearly states it charges to 14.2V. Obviously this charger is not designed for agm batteries and should not be used with them. The sales people who sell these batteries should be telling their customers they need a new charger when purchasing agm batteries.
As you can see by the link to Lifeline, the voltage for charge is 14.2-14.4 which is ok for XADC etc......The problem lies in the SOC voltages difference from Wet Cells and AGM's.
Note though the Universal battery has a higher minimum charge voltage.
So, in summary after all this it all boils down to the following:
1. A drop of .2-.3 volts from the converter to the battery is a marginal situation for a converter to perform properly. A loss of .3 or greater and your in deep POO. We've known this for several years but it still comes up at least once a month.
This alone is the biggest battery charging problem we have with making multi stage converters perform to spec.
2. AGM batteries resting voltage is .15 or greater for a given State Of Charge. This is the same thing as if you have voltage drop as stated in #1. So if you have wire problems, even .1-.2 volts drop and an AGM battery you are not going to see some converters perform to spec. I have known of this issue for about 2 years.
In reference to my charts......
#2 performance is acceptable. The XADC replaced 21.4 amps in 2 hrs and had 5.1 AH to go for 100% SOC This was with the average JOE's install with 24' (12' one way) of 4 ga wire and several connections.
Note the resting voltage at 75%SOC =12.78 VDC. if this was a wet cell at 75%SOC it would be at about 12.4VDC
#3 performance is acceptable. The XADC replaced 18.8 AH's in 2 hrs.
This was with short 4 ga wires. The battery was colder in this test by 5 deg. Note the resting voltage was 12.83vdc at 75% SOC
#1 performance is not acceptable although it replaced 43 AH in 2 hrs. It still had 20 AH to go. The Temp of the battery was at 61 deg F.
If I would have reset the XADC and started another cycle as I did in Chart #3 the battery would have reached +90% SOC in about a total of 3 hrs....I will live with that for the time being.
AGM batteries have been around for several years. The converter folks have disregarded them in the lower ended units that many of us use.
The converters perform great for Wet Cells and ok for AGM's.
Hopefully the next generation of converters will address minimum wire losses, battery differences and Temperature compensation with simple switches, adjustments,software and sensors. We are not talking about a major redesign nor a big cost here folks.
Jim
* This post was
edited 06/03/08 03:22pm by bigfootford *
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