[dtbaker]

all the decent chargers have different curves for different chemistries (flooded lead-acid, sealed, Lithium) needs being quite different. They all monitor voltage during the charge and when it hits certain set points, different things happen according to chemistry the charger is set for.

The Zivans seem to be good, dependable, mid-priced, intended for a fixed configuration at a set voltage and chemistry.

I have a Zivan-1 with a 96v FLA system, and it worked flawlessly until the batteries got 'old', and the peak voltage never gets QUITE up to where the charger expects to shut off automatically... so I put a manual timer on my wall to set a max charge time and make sure the charger shuts down.

 

[rmay635703]

The Zivans seem to be good, dependable, mid-priced, intended for a fixed configuration at a set voltage and chemistry.

What he is saying is NO there are no adaptive chargers on the market that vary the charge curve based on the starting voltage/DOD
AKA none pump more current and reach a higher voltage when the starting DOD is high and use a lower charge rate and achieve a lower voltage when DOD is minimal.

This simply isn't something I have seen except maybe in one or two smart forklift related chargers (which are rare also)

You could always buy a K&W BC-10 and just set the rate and set points higher or lower based on your DOD manually, right?

 

[Russco]

You could always buy a K&W BC-10 and just set the rate and set points higher or lower based on your DOD manually, right?

I guess you could use a K & W charger, but they went out of business years ago.

The only chargers I know of that allow the user to set the charging current and voltage are the Rudman and Russco chargers.

Russ Kaufmann

RUSSCO Engineering

 

[dtbaker]

The only chargers I know of that allow the user to set the charging current and voltage are the Rudman and Russco chargers.

well, you could get a monster bench power supply and twiddle with it 'real time'. But, something like the Manzinitas are also very flexible... but flexibility in pack voltage, etc, comes with a price!

The real question is.... how smart do you want the charger, and how much good does it do you? Other than setting an accurate over-volt to gas FLA, or an accurate constant-voltage end for sealed/lithium, perhaps with some feedback to a cell-by-cell voltage monitor to watch for an unbalanced cell... how fancy do you need?

 

[ProperCharging]

Based on my own experience and others, I've seen to many agm's suffer an early death.
It’s much easier with flooded batteries; they really can cope with some heavy overcharge as long as you don’t overheat them and remember topping with water. Agree?
Back in 2006, I frequented the Yahoo ev-list-archive, and “lee’s reg” where discussed among others. I’ve build my own 12V clamper for higher accuracy. It’s also temp compensated.
Perhaps I’m old-fashioned guy still hanging on to lead? But I think these clampers in conjunction with a variable absorption time charger will give me 20k + Miles per package?