State of Charge Question and Charging

[Capebuild]

Just a follow up... I went out to the trailer to look at the settings (still have the power plugged into the IP67 charger).... and now it's on "Float".
I've not seen that screen image come up... so "I think" I'm on the right track.

From what I interpreted from my conversation with the BB tech.... the cells in the battery will charge up and then at the float stage, all the voltages will
kind of even out amongst all the cells.
Kind of like filling a tub with a liquid and the surface water will evenly distribute (the voltages will all evenly distribute).
He also said the voltage will go up to 14+ volts and then settle down to 13.5 or 13.6 volts.

Learning.... I think I'm getting it.....

[bdosborn]

That's called cell balancing and it's an important part of the Battleborn BMS (well, any BMS really). Now you should run a handful of charge/discharge cycles and see how your meter and charger work. You can tweak things some more later if you think you need to.

Bruce

[lfhoward]

That’s great! I’m glad to hear you are all set now and that Battleborn’s customer service is first rate.

Looks like your trailer will be set for a really long time before you have to replace this battery. 3-5,000 cycles is awesome. I think my prismatic cells are rated at 2-4,000 cycles, after which they can still store 80% of the original charge.

[Capebuild]

Just one more follow up.....I had left the power charging cable plugged in last evening. This morning I checked the charger on the app and the final stage was showing up.... saying the battery was in "storage" mode. The interesting thing was that although yesterday's state of charge was showing 100%, it was now showing 98%. There was a note under the storage mode (see attached) saying something to the effect (and if I'm interpreting this correctly) that when the battery is full it will self drain a little on its own to prevent overcharging (at least that's how I'm interpreting it (which seems to be pretty neat)).

[featherliteCT1]

I hope bdosborn and/or lfhoward soon comment on the message shown in your latest screen shot. I associate that kind of message as being applicable to lead acid batteries, not Lifepo4. I am eager to learn more.

[lfhoward]

It sounds to me like the storage mode is there because a shore charger like you have is designed to able to be left plugged in for long periods of time, like weeks or months. I think it protects your battery by making sure it is not always in a high voltage state.

My Victron solar charge controller doesn’t have this mode, as it charges bulk-absorption-float every day when the sun comes up. At night it is off and the battery can rest.

Here’s a weird one (related but also a thread hijack)…



You can see the sequence of off-bulk-absorption-float in my graph today, but you can see it restarted the charging cycle at least 6 times beginning at 14:00 (2 pm). That’s when I left for a camping trip that I am currently on. I bet I have a loose connection somewhere between my roof solar panel and the charge controller that momentarily loses connection as it is bumping down the road. I will have to track that loose wire down.

[bdosborn]

You can see the sequence of off-bulk-absorption-float in my graph today, but you can see it restarted the charging cycle at least 6 times beginning at 14:00 (2 pm).

I think you've got your float voltage set a little high at 13.4V. My batteries will drop to 13.3V when a charger isn't present so I set my float voltage to 13.2V and the charger doesn't switch in and out of bulk like that. The charger *will* provide just enough power to carry whatever loads I've got on but won't go into bulk until the voltage goes below 13.2V.

FYI, I can set my Electrodacus BMS controller to only charge the battery to 95% , unlike the Victron that starts over every day. So I turn off the Victron when the van is sitting in driveway and use the Electrodacus to maintain the battery.

Bruce

[bdosborn]

I associate that kind of message as being applicable to lead acid batteries, not Lifepo4.

Yeah, that's totally lead acid stuff. Assuming that John set his charger up for lithium, its weird to see that kind of language. I found lead acid stuff peppered in my Victron charger lithium settings, I think Victron is a little slow to update their older chargers.
Bruce