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Post by tonyqj on Oct 28, 2016 15:24:12 GMT
Charge Efficiency/Peukert/Black Magic is all the same thing as far as this guide's concerned. Yeah but Peukert is practically irrelevant for the typical narrowboat owner. There was fundamental misunderstanding of it on CWDF in hindsight, which seemed to be reflected in what you wrote, Nick can fill you in on the details. Read it all... not at all concerned with it for this thread as I said above.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 28, 2016 15:27:17 GMT
Thank you. I will resist the temptation to ask why it's better as I have little doubt I'll not understand. When I'm out for blacking is the only time I use the charger, and so have never confirmed one way or another. Thanks again. Rog As you did not ask I will tell you. The inter;ink cables joining the two batteries have some resistance so if the cables are both on one end the furthest battery will be getting slightly less charge and delivering slightly less electricity. This means that one battery will always be better charged than the other. By putting the leads on opposite ends the electricity has to flow through the same number of interlinks so both batteries get the same charge and discharge. My own view is that with two batteries it will not make a significant difference but once you get more than two it becomes vital if you want to maximise battery life. Once you get much above four batteries even more complex wiring is needed to ensure each battery is charged and discharged to the same degree. That actually makes sense, thank you. Rog
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Post by bettina on Oct 28, 2016 15:34:48 GMT
For your purposes, think of an Ah (Amphour) as a 'unit of power'. A typical leisure battery will have 110 of them, so it's a 110Ah battery. Two batteries would give you 220Ah, three would give you 330Ah etc. So your 8 leisure batteries might give 880Ah, but it all depends on the battery - note that I said 'typical' was 110Ah; yours could be bigger or smaller. Hope that helps. The battery capacity is usually written on the product label. Of course the capacity is only true when new and will reduce over time as the battery 'wears out'. It is the actual capacity of the battery that needs recharging. As to your question about what is an Ah. An AmpHour is one amp flowing continuously for one hour. So a lamp taking 1 amp turned on for an hour would use 1Ah. An inverter taking - for example - 75Amps would use 75Ah per hour, or 1.25Ah every minute. So run your microwave for 5 mins (assuming it draws 75A) and would use 5x75=375Aminutes which if you divide by 60 would give you the answer in AmpHours because there are 60 minutes in one hour, giving us 375/60=6.25Ah of battery used up. So though microwaves use a lot of power, they are not on for long. It is a little bit more complex than this as batteries don't like big currents and so the battery capacity drops a bit, but in your case because you have a big bank, the load is shared by all the batteries, so the current per battery is small enough to ignore this. Not sure if this helps or if I have badly explained it. Let me know and I can improve for the future. It does indeed help, I've learned a little bit more from each of the 3 replies so far...Thank You Ohhh, btw - I'm not allowed to have a micro wave on board as 'im at the back tells me they draw to much power. I reckon that by Christmas I might have enough understanding about all this 'power supply' stuff that I put one on my wish list and have enough knowledge to back up the foreseeable argument Careful guys, you could be creating a monster here
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Post by tonyb on Oct 28, 2016 15:42:07 GMT
Just so you do not end up with egg on your face please be aware that the watts shown on microwave blurb is the cooking power, not the consumption. You need to look at the plate on the back for that but as a working figure use twice the cooking power.
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Post by smileypete on Oct 28, 2016 15:42:20 GMT
Yeah but Peukert is practically irrelevant for the typical narrowboat owner. There was fundamental misunderstanding of it on CWDF in hindsight, which seemed to be reflected in what you wrote, Nick can fill you in on the details. Read it all... not at all concerned with it for this thread as I said above. But if you'd understood it, I doubt you would have mentioned Peukert in the first place.
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Post by smileypete on Oct 28, 2016 15:54:25 GMT
I agree with Tony's work but would like to add in the hope of saving potential confusion if anyone charging from their alternator is waiting for the voltage to drop to float. In the vast majority of cases the standard alternator regulator does not have a float phase. It just maintain the same voltage as it did when in the bsorbtion stage. External regulators and a very few on alternator regulators will have a float stage. Would a large (1k (watt?) supply, on a sunny day be able to complete the float phase? Please try to make any replies as 'non-techy' as possible. I wasn't even confident enough to use the term watt without questioning myself. I do 'get' the 3 different stages of battery charging....the AB&F's is now I remember them currently Float charge is a bit of a misnomer as it's really intended to just counter 'self discharge' after a full charge cycle has taken place. To use the bucket analogy, float charge is when the bucket is brim full but you drip just enough water in to overcome a tiny pinhole leak. The battery should be fully charged after the bulk charge and absorption charge stages, because by then the charge current will have 'tailed off' almost to zero: (Title has the number of stages wrong but the rest is OK)
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Post by bettina on Oct 28, 2016 15:55:10 GMT
Thank you. I will resist the temptation to ask why it's better as I have little doubt I'll not understand. When I'm out for blacking is the only time I use the charger, and so have never confirmed one way or another. Thanks again. Rog As you did not ask I will tell you. The inter;ink cables joining the two batteries have some resistance so if the cables are both on one end the furthest battery will be getting slightly less charge and delivering slightly less electricity. This means that one battery will always be better charged than the other. By putting the leads on opposite ends the electricity has to flow through the same number of interlinks so both batteries get the same charge and discharge. My own view is that with two batteries it will not make a significant difference but once you get more than two it becomes vital if you want to maximise battery life. Once you get much above four batteries even more complex wiring is needed to ensure each battery is charged and discharged to the same degree. OK this last bit worries me somewhat. I know he has ours set up that the positive inter-link cable runs to the next batteries positive terminal and the same with the neg and has done that with all 8 batteries. What's this more "complex wiring" that you've mentioned? Keeping in mind I haven't read all of Tony's OP yet as I keep taking breaks to read other threads and/or my housework around the boat, so it may be covered in the more techy sections.
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Post by tonyqj on Oct 28, 2016 16:08:37 GMT
Read it all... not at all concerned with it for this thread as I said above. But if you'd understood it, I doubt you would have mentioned Peukert in the first place. I wrote 95% of the initial post ages ago. Just to make you happy I'll edit it to CE
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Post by tonyqj on Oct 28, 2016 16:13:41 GMT
As you did not ask I will tell you. The inter;ink cables joining the two batteries have some resistance so if the cables are both on one end the furthest battery will be getting slightly less charge and delivering slightly less electricity. This means that one battery will always be better charged than the other. By putting the leads on opposite ends the electricity has to flow through the same number of interlinks so both batteries get the same charge and discharge. My own view is that with two batteries it will not make a significant difference but once you get more than two it becomes vital if you want to maximise battery life. Once you get much above four batteries even more complex wiring is needed to ensure each battery is charged and discharged to the same degree. OK this last bit worries me somewhat. I know he has ours set up that the positive inter-link cable runs to the next batteries positive terminal and the same with the neg and has done that with all 8 batteries. What's this more "complex wiring" that you've mentioned? Keeping in mind I haven't read all of Tony's OP yet as I keep taking breaks to read other threads and/or my housework around the boat, so it may be covered in the more techy sections. Rather than re-write all of Gibbo's hard work, I'll suggest you check out this link: www.smartgauge.co.uk/batt_con.html
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Post by bettina on Oct 28, 2016 16:22:45 GMT
OK this last bit worries me somewhat. I know he has ours set up that the positive inter-link cable runs to the next batteries positive terminal and the same with the neg and has done that with all 8 batteries. What's this more "complex wiring" that you've mentioned? Keeping in mind I haven't read all of Tony's OP yet as I keep taking breaks to read other threads and/or my housework around the boat, so it may be covered in the more techy sections. Rather than re-write all of Gibbo's hard work, I'll suggest you check out this link: www.smartgauge.co.uk/batt_con.htmlThank you - looks like pretty in-depth reading from the peek I took, I think I'll put that on tomorrow morning reading list
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Post by tonyb on Oct 28, 2016 16:42:54 GMT
As you did not ask I will tell you. The inter;ink cables joining the two batteries have some resistance so if the cables are both on one end the furthest battery will be getting slightly less charge and delivering slightly less electricity. This means that one battery will always be better charged than the other. By putting the leads on opposite ends the electricity has to flow through the same number of interlinks so both batteries get the same charge and discharge. My own view is that with two batteries it will not make a significant difference but once you get more than two it becomes vital if you want to maximise battery life. Once you get much above four batteries even more complex wiring is needed to ensure each battery is charged and discharged to the same degree. OK this last bit worries me somewhat. I know he has ours set up that the positive inter-link cable runs to the next batteries positive terminal and the same with the neg and has done that with all 8 batteries. What's this more "complex wiring" that you've mentioned? Keeping in mind I haven't read all of Tony's OP yet as I keep taking breaks to read other threads and/or my housework around the boat, so it may be covered in the more techy sections. As long as mall the positive leads including supply and charging leads are on one end of the bank and the negatives on the other nothing too terrible will happen very quickly if at all. However with all those interlinks the resistance in them will reduce the charge going into the batteries. I have no idea by how much but probably only a very few amps with well discharged batteries and even that will reduce as they charge. As Tony said Gibbo explains it very well on the Smartgauge site and I think another member worked out an even better way.
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Post by lampiniafloat on Oct 28, 2016 16:52:32 GMT
Hi - first post here!
Can I just add my thanks to Bettina's for this excellent info... We are liveaboards coming into our first winter. My 2 solar panels are not really cutting it any more and I shall have to dig that old charger out from the "under the bed 'ole".
There will be many questions - apologies and thanks in advance!
Jon n Jane
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Post by Gone on Oct 28, 2016 17:00:31 GMT
Hi - first post here! Can I just add my thanks to Bettina's for this excellent info... We are liveaboards coming into our first winter. My 2 solar panels are not really cutting it any more and I shall have to dig that old charger out from the "under the bed 'ole". There will be many questions - apologies and thanks in advance! Jon n Jane Hi - If you ask a question you may be surprised how quickly you get an answer, or a request for clarification, so don't be afraid to ask :-)
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Post by tonyqj on Oct 28, 2016 17:26:59 GMT
As Tony said Gibbo explains it very well on the Smartgauge site and I think another member worked out an even better way. That was our very own SmileyPete and his solution is also on that page along with a credit.
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Post by smileypete on Oct 28, 2016 17:39:22 GMT
I wrote 95% of the initial post ages ago. Just to make you happy I'll edit it to CE Hurray, death to Peukert! Has nothing to do with charging anyway...
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