Charger, which one?

1908 Views 7 Replies 4 Participants Last post by EVfun, Dec 14, 2010

spdas

Discussion Starter · Dec 13, 2010

Aloha all. I am getting my Yarus EV tomorrow and need a charger. It currently has 14 x50ah AGM's and can handle 19 x 50ah AGM's. (Warp9 and Zilla HV). But it came without the charger and the batteries are at the end of their life. I will stay with agm or flooded lead for awhile and then go lithium, so I don't want to sink too much into a charger. I only have 115VAC here (running off Photovoltaic and off the grid) so that limits me. So, which is the cheapest way to go to get 10-15 amps pumped into these cells? thanks
Francis

BTW: I have two legs of 100 to 125vdc @20amps each (varies) coming off my solar panels......sure would be nice to be able to use that dc straight after figuring out a voltage regulator.

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dtbaker

· #2 · Dec 13, 2010

spdas said:
It currently has 14 x50ah AGM's ... But it came without the charger and the batteries are at the end of their life. I will stay with agm or flooded lead for awhile and then go lithium,

first, you have to decide on what batteries... if you go with the less expensive floodies you will also get better range and durability, but more weight and space for given pack voltage. zivan, elcon, and others are not too expensive.

I would suggest you strongly consider going Lithium rather than adding another set of lead, especially if you have to buy a charger anyway. If you work the numbers out over the life, the lithium is less expensive per mile of service.... and will perform way better at a given voltage pack being so much lighter in the car and with almost no voltage sag. Just need to change your instrumentation a little to count amp hours instead of voltage based SOC meter.

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spdas

Discussion Starter · #3 · Dec 13, 2010

dtbaker said:
first, you have to decide on what batteries... if you go with the less expensive floodies you will also get better range and durability, but more weight and space for given pack voltage. zivan, elcon, and others are not too expensive.

I would suggest you strongly consider going Lithium rather than adding another set of lead, especially if you have to buy a charger anyway. If you work the numbers out over the life, the lithium is less expensive per mile of service.... and will perform way better at a given voltage pack being so much lighter in the car and with almost no voltage sag. Just need to change your instrumentation a little to count amp hours instead of voltage based SOC meter.

Yes I agree that Lithium is the way to go, but I cannot convince my wallet of that yet. I can get AGM's for basically $0.00 so I want to play around with them for awhile, until I can afford Lithiums and so I don't want to pay a lot for a charger.

Francis

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dtbaker

· #4 · Dec 13, 2010

hhhmmm, well as people move from lead to Li there will probably be a fair number of chargers coming up on the used market as well as SOC instruments. For instance, I will be trying to sell my Zivan-1 very soon at a modest discount from retail... Its less than 2 years old, but set up for a 96v nominal floodie pack. I'll also sell my instrument cluster, dc-dc, and flow-rite watering system as I am in the middle of upgrade to 120v of Li.

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EVfun

· #5 · Dec 13, 2010

You need flexibility if you don't want to be buying a new charger every time you make a pack change. I would recommend a Manzanita Micro PFC-20. It is not cheap, but it can charge anything from 12 volts to 360 volts.

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dtbaker

· #6 · Dec 13, 2010

EVfun said:
You need flexibility if you don't want to be buying a new charger every time you make a pack change. I would recommend a Manzanita Micro PFC-20. It is not cheap, but it can charge anything from 12 volts to 360 volts.

but once you install a pack of Li, you *shouldnt* need to change anything for 10 years, right?

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ElectriCar

· #7 · Dec 14, 2010

I have a Zivan NG5 which is programmable to your battery type. I so far have almost 7000 miles on it, approximately 400 charges on it, many in the small compartment behind my seat. It has two cooling fans and hasn't failed me yet! It also has auxiliary relays which you can use to prevent drive off when it's charging, a smart thing to do!

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EVfun

· #8 · Dec 14, 2010

dtbaker said:
but once you install a pack of Li, you *shouldnt* need to change anything for 10 years, right?

Unless you choose to change the number of cells, say for a voltage increase or because you reverse a couple weak ones. Then there is the current issue of playing with any number of lead batteries (roughly between 14 and 19) while saving for Lithium and learning more about his EV.

I'm not an unbiased advocate of the Manzanita Micro PFC -- I own one

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