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1000 Watt Generator + 1000 Watt Charger = 180 Watts output?
Can't believe I'm the first person with this problem, but did a couple
searches and turned up nuttin... Have a 1000 Watt Gasoline Yamaha generator connected to a Heart Interface Freedom 10. Batteries are a pair of 8D gels in parallel, old but servicable. Monitoring system by Ample Power. Hook 'em all up, and with batteries at about 50% (12.1 to 12.2) I get a MAX of 15 amps DC, call it 180 watts into the batteries. Swapped generators, EXACT same output. A visiting cruiser suspected that the Heart is REALLY inefficient at generator-based power charging. Maybe, but 20% efficient sounds a bit loony... I am currently at anchor for awhile, so the purpose of the Yamaha was to not require using my Perkins 4-108 with 150 amp alternator in order to keep my beer cold; I'd rather save my engine for propulsion. But when I do use the engine to charge, it works as expected based upon state of charge - 130 amps initially, 3 stages, yada yada. Ideas? SV KOMFY American Samoa |
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#3
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1000 Watt Generator + 1000 Watt Charger = 180 Watts output?
The rated charging output of a Freedom 10 is 50 Amps. My Freedom 20 is rated at 100 Amps
and will put that out if my bank (4 6-volts, 450 AH) is partially depleted. http://www.xantrex.com/products/product.asp?did=555&p=2 If your bank will accept 130 Amps from the alternator then the problem isn't there. I've never tried it from a genset. Is your generator producing a sine wave, or is it an alternator feeding an inverter, which may produce a square wave? You should go through the manual to make sure you didn't miss something embarrassing, and then call Xantrex support. They were very helpful for me when I plugged my 110 Freedom 20 into a 220 socket! (There's an undoc'd fuse inside that fortunately pops very quickly!) "Larry W4CSC" wrote in message ... That's all the CHARGING circuit of your Heart is capable of putting out. The 1000W is for the INVERTER in it, not the little 10A charger. 1000W/14V= 71Amps. That's gonna be one BIG charger! On 9 Oct 2003 19:10:53 -0700, (mitch) wrote: Can't believe I'm the first person with this problem, but did a couple searches and turned up nuttin... Have a 1000 Watt Gasoline Yamaha generator connected to a Heart Interface Freedom 10. Batteries are a pair of 8D gels in parallel, old but servicable. Monitoring system by Ample Power. Hook 'em all up, and with batteries at about 50% (12.1 to 12.2) I get a MAX of 15 amps DC, call it 180 watts into the batteries. Swapped generators, EXACT same output. A visiting cruiser suspected that the Heart is REALLY inefficient at generator-based power charging. Maybe, but 20% efficient sounds a bit loony... I am currently at anchor for awhile, so the purpose of the Yamaha was to not require using my Perkins 4-108 with 150 amp alternator in order to keep my beer cold; I'd rather save my engine for propulsion. But when I do use the engine to charge, it works as expected based upon state of charge - 130 amps initially, 3 stages, yada yada. Ideas? SV KOMFY American Samoa Larry W4CSC 3600 planes with transponders are burning 8-10 million gallons of kerosene per hour over the USA. R-12 car air conditioners are responsible for the ozone hole, right? |
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#4
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1000 Watt Generator + 1000 Watt Charger = 180 Watts output?
Most of the inverter/chargers have bigger ratings as inverters than as
chargers. This mostly makes sense -- for the average user, the inverter's continous rating will rarely be used for very long, while the charger's rated output will be used on every charge. Battery life is cloesly related to the rate at which you charge and discharge them, so generally at battery set that's good for 1,000 watts every now and then should not be charged faster than, say, 500 watts. With that said, the spec on your charger http://www.xantrex.com/products/product.asp?did=555&p=2 says that it will do 50A on the charge side -- still only 70% of the AC rating, but a lot more than the 15A you're seeing. I suggest you put a DVM across the battery posts while charging and see what you get. It's possible that your "old but serviceable" 8Ds are not as serviceable as you think -- that they've developed a high internal resistance in one or more cells. Unfortunately there's not a lot you can do, as gel cells can't be equalized. It's also possible that you're losing power in a lose connection somewhere -- that's both frustrating and dangerous. Jim Woodward www.mvFintry.com (Larry W4CSC) wrote in message ... That's all the CHARGING circuit of your Heart is capable of putting out. The 1000W is for the INVERTER in it, not the little 10A charger. 1000W/14V= 71Amps. That's gonna be one BIG charger! On 9 Oct 2003 19:10:53 -0700, (mitch) wrote: Can't believe I'm the first person with this problem, but did a couple searches and turned up nuttin... Have a 1000 Watt Gasoline Yamaha generator connected to a Heart Interface Freedom 10. Batteries are a pair of 8D gels in parallel, old but servicable. Monitoring system by Ample Power. Hook 'em all up, and with batteries at about 50% (12.1 to 12.2) I get a MAX of 15 amps DC, call it 180 watts into the batteries. Swapped generators, EXACT same output. A visiting cruiser suspected that the Heart is REALLY inefficient at generator-based power charging. Maybe, but 20% efficient sounds a bit loony... I am currently at anchor for awhile, so the purpose of the Yamaha was to not require using my Perkins 4-108 with 150 amp alternator in order to keep my beer cold; I'd rather save my engine for propulsion. But when I do use the engine to charge, it works as expected based upon state of charge - 130 amps initially, 3 stages, yada yada. Ideas? SV KOMFY American Samoa Larry W4CSC 3600 planes with transponders are burning 8-10 million gallons of kerosene per hour over the USA. R-12 car air conditioners are responsible for the ozone hole, right? |
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#5
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1000 Watt Generator + 1000 Watt Charger = 180 Watts output?
71 amps isn't all that big of a charger. Especially when you are using
a genset to recharge. I can recharge while pulling the cold plates down. Only having to run an hour in the morning and an hour in the evening. Mine is 110 amps and I can upgrade it to 220 amps. I suspect that KOMFY's problem is that his generator is coupled to an inverter generating MSW output. A friend this past winter had a Coleman or Honda that was such a unit. It allows the RPM of the engine to be adjusted automatically to varying loads. Normal gensets can't do that without the line frequency varying off of 60Hz. Doug "Larry W4CSC" wrote in message ... That's all the CHARGING circuit of your Heart is capable of putting out. The 1000W is for the INVERTER in it, not the little 10A charger. 1000W/14V= 71Amps. That's gonna be one BIG charger! On 9 Oct 2003 19:10:53 -0700, (mitch) wrote: Can't believe I'm the first person with this problem, but did a couple searches and turned up nuttin... Have a 1000 Watt Gasoline Yamaha generator connected to a Heart Interface Freedom 10. Batteries are a pair of 8D gels in parallel, old but servicable. Monitoring system by Ample Power. Hook 'em all up, and with batteries at about 50% (12.1 to 12.2) I get a MAX of 15 amps DC, call it 180 watts into the batteries. Swapped generators, EXACT same output. A visiting cruiser suspected that the Heart is REALLY inefficient at generator-based power charging. Maybe, but 20% efficient sounds a bit loony... I am currently at anchor for awhile, so the purpose of the Yamaha was to not require using my Perkins 4-108 with 150 amp alternator in order to keep my beer cold; I'd rather save my engine for propulsion. But when I do use the engine to charge, it works as expected based upon state of charge - 130 amps initially, 3 stages, yada yada. Ideas? SV KOMFY American Samoa Larry W4CSC 3600 planes with transponders are burning 8-10 million gallons of kerosene per hour over the USA. R-12 car air conditioners are responsible for the ozone hole, right? |
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#6
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1000 Watt Generator + 1000 Watt Charger = 180 Watts output?
So the Xantrex inverter I have, DR1512, is a 1500 watt inverter with a
maximum of 70 amps charging capacity. There is a knob to adjust the maximum rate of charge. Perhaps Heart does something similar? A quick look at the heart data sheet on the Xantrex web site says the Freedom 10 inverter charger is 50 amps. http://www.xantrex.com/support/docserve.asp?id=269 The manual http://www.xantrex.com/support/docserve.asp?id=431 says you have a two bank charge capacity. The "echo-charge" bank charges at 15 amps and is intended for the starting battery. Perhaps you want to review how the Heart is setup. Good luck! David, KJ7PF "Larry W4CSC" wrote in message ... That's all the CHARGING circuit of your Heart is capable of putting out. The 1000W is for the INVERTER in it, not the little 10A charger. 1000W/14V= 71Amps. That's gonna be one BIG charger! On 9 Oct 2003 19:10:53 -0700, (mitch) wrote: Can't believe I'm the first person with this problem, but did a couple searches and turned up nuttin... Have a 1000 Watt Gasoline Yamaha generator connected to a Heart Interface Freedom 10. Batteries are a pair of 8D gels in parallel, old but servicable. Monitoring system by Ample Power. Hook 'em all up, and with batteries at about 50% (12.1 to 12.2) I get a MAX of 15 amps DC, call it 180 watts into the batteries. Swapped generators, EXACT same output. A visiting cruiser suspected that the Heart is REALLY inefficient at generator-based power charging. Maybe, but 20% efficient sounds a bit loony... I am currently at anchor for awhile, so the purpose of the Yamaha was to not require using my Perkins 4-108 with 150 amp alternator in order to keep my beer cold; I'd rather save my engine for propulsion. But when I do use the engine to charge, it works as expected based upon state of charge - 130 amps initially, 3 stages, yada yada. Ideas? SV KOMFY American Samoa Larry W4CSC 3600 planes with transponders are burning 8-10 million gallons of kerosene per hour over the USA. R-12 car air conditioners are responsible for the ozone hole, right? |
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#7
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1000 Watt Generator + 1000 Watt Charger = 180 Watts output?
If you have 700 AH house batteries, 70A is the standard charge (10%)
for 14 hours (from "dead", about 1.150 specific gravity). But, if you hit a poor 130AH deep cycle with 70A trying to charge it quicker, all you'll do is cause gassing and loss of water, while overheating and warping the plates and case plastic. Please don't charge any of them over 10% of AH capacity to get the best charge without endangering the cells.......otherwise all you get is a "surface charge" without deep cell restoration. The voltage will come up quickly, but you still won't get a good charge..... On Sat, 18 Oct 2003 00:17:41 GMT, "David Q. King" wrote: So the Xantrex inverter I have, DR1512, is a 1500 watt inverter with a maximum of 70 amps charging capacity. There is a knob to adjust the maximum rate of charge. Perhaps Heart does something similar? A quick look at the heart data sheet on the Xantrex web site says the Freedom 10 inverter charger is 50 amps. http://www.xantrex.com/support/docserve.asp?id=269 The manual http://www.xantrex.com/support/docserve.asp?id=431 says you have a two bank charge capacity. The "echo-charge" bank charges at 15 amps and is intended for the starting battery. Perhaps you want to review how the Heart is setup. Good luck! David, KJ7PF "Larry W4CSC" wrote in message ... That's all the CHARGING circuit of your Heart is capable of putting out. The 1000W is for the INVERTER in it, not the little 10A charger. 1000W/14V= 71Amps. That's gonna be one BIG charger! On 9 Oct 2003 19:10:53 -0700, (mitch) wrote: Can't believe I'm the first person with this problem, but did a couple searches and turned up nuttin... Have a 1000 Watt Gasoline Yamaha generator connected to a Heart Interface Freedom 10. Batteries are a pair of 8D gels in parallel, old but servicable. Monitoring system by Ample Power. Hook 'em all up, and with batteries at about 50% (12.1 to 12.2) I get a MAX of 15 amps DC, call it 180 watts into the batteries. Swapped generators, EXACT same output. A visiting cruiser suspected that the Heart is REALLY inefficient at generator-based power charging. Maybe, but 20% efficient sounds a bit loony... I am currently at anchor for awhile, so the purpose of the Yamaha was to not require using my Perkins 4-108 with 150 amp alternator in order to keep my beer cold; I'd rather save my engine for propulsion. But when I do use the engine to charge, it works as expected based upon state of charge - 130 amps initially, 3 stages, yada yada. Ideas? SV KOMFY American Samoa Larry W4CSC 3600 planes with transponders are burning 8-10 million gallons of kerosene per hour over the USA. R-12 car air conditioners are responsible for the ozone hole, right? Larry W4CSC US Supports Apartheid! Vetoes UN resolution condemning Apartheid Wall. http://www.antiwar.com/hacohen/h052103.html http://www.theage.com.au/articles/20...917478560.html Can apartheid at home be far away?.... Apartheid NOW! Wall off Mississippi! |
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#8
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1000 Watt Generator + 1000 Watt Charger = 180 Watts output?
Recommended max charge rate for liquid lead acid batteries is
25% of AH rating. 50% for gels, and higher for AGM. Doug "Larry W4CSC" wrote in message ... If you have 700 AH house batteries, 70A is the standard charge (10%) for 14 hours (from "dead", about 1.150 specific gravity). But, if you hit a poor 130AH deep cycle with 70A trying to charge it quicker, all you'll do is cause gassing and loss of water, while overheating and warping the plates and case plastic. Please don't charge any of them over 10% of AH capacity to get the best charge without endangering the cells.......otherwise all you get is a "surface charge" without deep cell restoration. The voltage will come up quickly, but you still won't get a good charge..... On Sat, 18 Oct 2003 00:17:41 GMT, "David Q. King" wrote: So the Xantrex inverter I have, DR1512, is a 1500 watt inverter with a maximum of 70 amps charging capacity. There is a knob to adjust the maximum rate of charge. Perhaps Heart does something similar? A quick look at the heart data sheet on the Xantrex web site says the Freedom 10 inverter charger is 50 amps. http://www.xantrex.com/support/docserve.asp?id=269 The manual http://www.xantrex.com/support/docserve.asp?id=431 says you have a two bank charge capacity. The "echo-charge" bank charges at 15 amps and is intended for the starting battery. Perhaps you want to review how the Heart is setup. Good luck! David, KJ7PF "Larry W4CSC" wrote in message ... That's all the CHARGING circuit of your Heart is capable of putting out. The 1000W is for the INVERTER in it, not the little 10A charger. 1000W/14V= 71Amps. That's gonna be one BIG charger! On 9 Oct 2003 19:10:53 -0700, (mitch) wrote: Can't believe I'm the first person with this problem, but did a couple searches and turned up nuttin... Have a 1000 Watt Gasoline Yamaha generator connected to a Heart Interface Freedom 10. Batteries are a pair of 8D gels in parallel, old but servicable. Monitoring system by Ample Power. Hook 'em all up, and with batteries at about 50% (12.1 to 12.2) I get a MAX of 15 amps DC, call it 180 watts into the batteries. Swapped generators, EXACT same output. A visiting cruiser suspected that the Heart is REALLY inefficient at generator-based power charging. Maybe, but 20% efficient sounds a bit loony... I am currently at anchor for awhile, so the purpose of the Yamaha was to not require using my Perkins 4-108 with 150 amp alternator in order to keep my beer cold; I'd rather save my engine for propulsion. But when I do use the engine to charge, it works as expected based upon state of charge - 130 amps initially, 3 stages, yada yada. Ideas? SV KOMFY American Samoa Larry W4CSC 3600 planes with transponders are burning 8-10 million gallons of kerosene per hour over the USA. R-12 car air conditioners are responsible for the ozone hole, right? Larry W4CSC US Supports Apartheid! Vetoes UN resolution condemning Apartheid Wall. http://www.antiwar.com/hacohen/h052103.html http://www.theage.com.au/articles/20...917478560.html Can apartheid at home be far away?.... Apartheid NOW! Wall off Mississippi! |
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#9
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1000 Watt Generator + 1000 Watt Charger = 180 Watts output?
The Echo-Charge - Yes that must be it! Check you wiring to see if the main bank is
connect to the echo-charge output. "David Q. King" wrote in message news:AE%jb.162135$%h1.158052@sccrnsc02... So the Xantrex inverter I have, DR1512, is a 1500 watt inverter with a maximum of 70 amps charging capacity. There is a knob to adjust the maximum rate of charge. Perhaps Heart does something similar? A quick look at the heart data sheet on the Xantrex web site says the Freedom 10 inverter charger is 50 amps. http://www.xantrex.com/support/docserve.asp?id=269 The manual http://www.xantrex.com/support/docserve.asp?id=431 says you have a two bank charge capacity. The "echo-charge" bank charges at 15 amps and is intended for the starting battery. Perhaps you want to review how the Heart is setup. Good luck! David, KJ7PF "Larry W4CSC" wrote in message ... That's all the CHARGING circuit of your Heart is capable of putting out. The 1000W is for the INVERTER in it, not the little 10A charger. 1000W/14V= 71Amps. That's gonna be one BIG charger! On 9 Oct 2003 19:10:53 -0700, (mitch) wrote: Can't believe I'm the first person with this problem, but did a couple searches and turned up nuttin... Have a 1000 Watt Gasoline Yamaha generator connected to a Heart Interface Freedom 10. Batteries are a pair of 8D gels in parallel, old but servicable. Monitoring system by Ample Power. Hook 'em all up, and with batteries at about 50% (12.1 to 12.2) I get a MAX of 15 amps DC, call it 180 watts into the batteries. Swapped generators, EXACT same output. A visiting cruiser suspected that the Heart is REALLY inefficient at generator-based power charging. Maybe, but 20% efficient sounds a bit loony... I am currently at anchor for awhile, so the purpose of the Yamaha was to not require using my Perkins 4-108 with 150 amp alternator in order to keep my beer cold; I'd rather save my engine for propulsion. But when I do use the engine to charge, it works as expected based upon state of charge - 130 amps initially, 3 stages, yada yada. Ideas? SV KOMFY American Samoa Larry W4CSC 3600 planes with transponders are burning 8-10 million gallons of kerosene per hour over the USA. R-12 car air conditioners are responsible for the ozone hole, right? |
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#10
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1000 Watt Generator + 1000 Watt Charger = 180 Watts output?
IMHO - your problem relates to the wave shape from the generator - most
inverter/chargers use only the very top portion of the wave shape for the charger circuit - An irregular wave shape (which is very likely from low cost genset) will result in lower than expected charge rates - for example - using a Trace 2000 unit on shore power I can charge at any rate desired; however, when using a Phasor 3600 rpm 3.5 KW genset I can achieve only about 30 amp rate into a 620 AMPHour house bank and it decreases rapidly to about 20 amps as the genset windings heat up. See the Trace Engineering/ XANTREX site and read the owners manuals for Trace 2000 sB12 unit for full explanation. Your generator is most like "construction grade" not aux power grade and does not have a well regulated output - if you are electronically inclined locate an oscilloscope and look at output wave form you will be very surprised how bad it looks compared to "house power" "David Q. King" wrote in message news:AE%jb.162135$%h1.158052@sccrnsc02... So the Xantrex inverter I have, DR1512, is a 1500 watt inverter with a maximum of 70 amps charging capacity. There is a knob to adjust the maximum rate of charge. Perhaps Heart does something similar? A quick look at the heart data sheet on the Xantrex web site says the Freedom 10 inverter charger is 50 amps. http://www.xantrex.com/support/docserve.asp?id=269 The manual http://www.xantrex.com/support/docserve.asp?id=431 says you have a two bank charge capacity. The "echo-charge" bank charges at 15 amps and is intended for the starting battery. Perhaps you want to review how the Heart is setup. Good luck! David, KJ7PF "Larry W4CSC" wrote in message ... That's all the CHARGING circuit of your Heart is capable of putting out. The 1000W is for the INVERTER in it, not the little 10A charger. 1000W/14V= 71Amps. That's gonna be one BIG charger! On 9 Oct 2003 19:10:53 -0700, (mitch) wrote: Can't believe I'm the first person with this problem, but did a couple searches and turned up nuttin... Have a 1000 Watt Gasoline Yamaha generator connected to a Heart Interface Freedom 10. Batteries are a pair of 8D gels in parallel, old but servicable. Monitoring system by Ample Power. Hook 'em all up, and with batteries at about 50% (12.1 to 12.2) I get a MAX of 15 amps DC, call it 180 watts into the batteries. Swapped generators, EXACT same output. A visiting cruiser suspected that the Heart is REALLY inefficient at generator-based power charging. Maybe, but 20% efficient sounds a bit loony... I am currently at anchor for awhile, so the purpose of the Yamaha was to not require using my Perkins 4-108 with 150 amp alternator in order to keep my beer cold; I'd rather save my engine for propulsion. But when I do use the engine to charge, it works as expected based upon state of charge - 130 amps initially, 3 stages, yada yada. Ideas? SV KOMFY American Samoa Larry W4CSC 3600 planes with transponders are burning 8-10 million gallons of kerosene per hour over the USA. R-12 car air conditioners are responsible for the ozone hole, right? |
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