Equalizing Battries

[mat0jab]

Has anyone had any experience with equalizing their batteries using the Xantrex 2000 charger/inverter with the Link 1000 controler? I feel the performance of my house bank has decreased and I may need to perform this function. The questions I have are: How long did it take? How did you protect any sensitive equipment from being fried? How do the battery combiner/ isolator come into play? Do the starting batteries get equalized at the same time?

As PDQ owners we should all have pretty similar configurations, so I look forward to everyone’s input.

Thanks for the input, because I’m totally in the dark in this one…

Mark Thomas
Whistler II
PDQ 32 LRC #41

[mikeandrebecca]

Another great question Mark. I too have been wondering about this. Thanks for reading my mind!



Mike

[duetto]

hi guys,

we have a 34 powercat but have equalized batteries using the prosine 2000. we did this a couple of years ago so exact details are a little fuzzy. on our boat, charger directly charged house bank (4-T105). so to equalize we disconnected combiner and shut off all instruments and other drains. this protects your sensitive devices. actual equalize cycle took about 15-20 minutes as i recall. before you start, make sure that all connection are clean and secure. prosine makes it easy to get into equalize mode through remote panel. the manual has a good explanation of this. the book "living on 12V" also has a good write up. you can find actual text on the web.

btw, not sure i saw any great change. w/o baseline of charge times and resulting Ah restoration it's hard to measure result.

good luck

[Tanah-Keeta]

I had the Heart Interface 2000 on my 36 and equalized once per year.

The charger remote control manual had the instructions. As I remember,

--shut off all 12 volt appliances to protect them from the high voltage
--fill batteries with water
--charge them fully
--i checked and recorded each cell voltage with a bubble tester.
--leave caps on battery but provide adequate ventilation for the compartment
--start equalization cycle with remote
--should take about 6-8 hours and will take the voltage to 14-15 volts
--it will shut off automatically or you can terminate it manually.
--recheck the cells and compare to previous readings.

You should see initial cell readings with a lot of variability while after equalization they should all be very close... if not, you have a bad cell.

[maxicrom]

While on this topic -

Question: we are looking at adding an inverter (we only have a charger and the stock solar panels now). In the past the Heart Unit was the "go to" - the Xantrex 2000 seems to be the current model of choice. A few years ago I read about smart Inverter technology that will draw from the battery bank should you have an AC load spike. When you switch to an inverter I understand that the AC load passes through the inverter rather than bypassing to the AC panel.

Any info would be appreciated,

Mike & Linda

Note: We have managed to keep II the Max fully functional on 30A and would like to stay that way, our only high AC draw appliances are the 18,000 BTU AC unit , battery charger, and toaster oven (even in winter we stay under 25A load using 5 econo-heat panels and with a mattress warmer cycling panels off to use the toaster oven).

[Tanah-Keeta]

I don't feel qualified to advise you on what inverter charger to use. I had the Heart Interface 2000 on the 36 and I have the Prosine on the 34. I had great service with the Heart Interface and so far... except for the remote panel, the Prosine has worked. (Others have had bad experiences with the Prosine) I only use the inverter at anchor.. otherwise it is off. On the Prosine, I think the shore power goes thru the inverter/charger but don't know what would happen if the inverter was activated with shore power present.

[amytom]

I don't know about the more expensive units but the Prosine and Xantrex have a relay that bypasses the inverter while shore power is available. This is internal to the unit.

[duetto]

mike & linda,

after 2 prosines failed we switched to an inverter/charger from victron systems. it has the "power assist" function that you mention. it senses a voltage spike and supplements the shorepower/genset power with battery power. it actually works and is transparent. it does differ from the prosine in that it is always inline to power coming into the boat.

[maxicrom]

Duetto,

Thanks, I knew that I had read about that technology but since we are not planning on any long term cruising for the next few years, we figure that the technology will only get better. I like the idea of the inverter working as the AC power source, in theory it should be more stable and less prone to power spikes.

Mike & Linda