[miscrms]

Short Version:
Can anyone point me toward a Lithium compatible 48V charger that can be fed with ~220V DC input? Something in the range of a few kW would be most useful, as the pack will be ~15kWh. If it could handle both 120V and 240VAC inputs in addition that would be big plus. Will likely need a 48V BMS solutions as well, so chargers that require BMS interaction would be ok.

I was excited when I saw Elcon's 85-265VAC input range on their PFC series, but they said their chargers can't run off DC. They suggested Zivan, but there's a hole right where I need it between the 200VDC max on the 120VAC model and the 240VDC min on the 240VAC model.

Longer Version:
Looking at a large offgrid solar setup for an RV. Already have a full Leaf battery pack, so was thinking about using that instead of dragging around a ton of lead.

It would be nice to preserve the original pack configuration and use the Leaf BMS, charger, maybe even AC Compressor and heater. But finding an AC inverter / solar charging solution for a 360V battery seems like a long shot. There could be a chance of doing it with one of the new inverters designed to interface to a Tesla Powerwall or LG pack, but I don't know that anyone has reverse engineered the communication interface yet.

So that pretty much leaves me having to go the more standard 48V route. At least there seem to be some Lithium compatible 48V solar charge controllers out there, and of course plenty of 48V inverters. That leaves charging off shore power (120V 15-30A or 240V 30-50A) and emergency generator backup.

Rather than having to buy and haul a generator, I'd like to use the Prius that we'll likely be towing anyway as our emergency backup power source. I can always go the "traditional" route and use an old UPS to convert the Prius's 220-240VDC to 120 or 240VAC, and then run the charger off that to put power back into the batteries. But with a charger that could take that DC input directly that would be one less power conversion and one less big piece of equipment to buy and haul.

Thanks for any thoughts!
Rob

 

[major]

I think DeltaQ chargers fit your AC/DC input requirements.

 

[pm_dawn]

Eltek Flatpack2 HE should be your best choice.

They are isolated and can be parallelled (or series connected).
They run of DC.
They are 48v with a programmable range of 43.5v to 57.5V

I have used three of them in series to create a three phase AC input 150v 40A charger for my car.

Check them out.
2kw per unit.

Best Regards
/Per

 

[miscrms]

Thanks for the leads!

Come to think of it I have a deltaq quiq charger around from another project. It's 96v, but would give me something to play with.

The flatpacks look very promising. I assume you just run them CC to the set voltage, then CV? Probably just the ticket for charging Lithium to a safe voltage with a BMS to balance and/or terminate charge if a cell gets too high.

Also looking at just providing a D.C. Output from the Prius to the solar charge controller with a D.C. transfer switch. Would have to be a high voltage type with a dc:dc converter, perhaps something like this?
https://www.morningstarcorp.com/products/tristar-mppt-600v/

In that case I'd still need a shore power charger, probably an inverter with integrated charger in that case. Either approach should meet the goal of reducing the overall number of inverters/chargers required.

Rob