Well What a Pain unable to manually charge my NiFe Bank

[Herman]

I was wondering when it would happen
The DC power supply I had been using to charge the Ni Fe cells on those not so sunny days has given up and I am hoping they will fix it the second time under warranty, my alternative is to look for a new charger Inverter that can deal with Ni Fe cells in OZZIE unless you guys have a better idea.

[mike90045]

Yeah, I can use the generator and charger internal to the inverter, and can get close, but to get full, I need sun.

At least NiFe does not care about being at partial charge

[Herman]

Hi guys

As I have a 48 volt bank of  NiFe cells I have been wondering which is the best Charger Inverter I have been looking at Magnum MagnaSine Inverter / Chargers or the Schneider Off Grid type of system

[mike90045]

Which one can handle the higher voltage ?

[Herman]

Both are in the 64 VDC range so the option would be to possibly drop two cells and pushing the charge up to 1.65 VDC per cell for a good charge then add the two cells back on then the next day drop another cells and go through the same process for a equalize charge that way the inverter does not go into over volt, then use 1.60 volt for your nominal charge 60 VDC.

Iron Edison is aware of the short fall of the inverter that they use and have mention that there is a firmware fix in the pipe line so that leaves the other option of waiting for that or keep surfing the web but how long is a piece of string?

[mike90045]

take comfort that nothing "bad" happens when you undercharge, you just don't have full capacity to draw from.

Do you have solar ?  With morningstar and classic, either can get the bank up to 67V, below the OV for the inverter, I don't sweat the cloudy days, after a week or 2 I'll get some sun to top them off with.

Moving cells in and out of the pack seems risky.

[dgd]

Both are in the 64 VDC range so the option would be to possibly drop two cells and pushing the charge up to 1.65 VDC per cell for a good charge then add the two cells back on then the next day drop another cells and go through the same process for a equalize charge that way the inverter does not go into over volt, then use 1.60 volt for your nominal charge 60 VDC.

its generally never a good idea to temporarily remove cells from a bank to overcharge the remaining cells. Everything can get unbalanced after a while if its a daily use bank.

...  but how long is a piece of string?

isn't that twice the distance from one end to the middle?

dgd

[Herman]

Good evening form OZ

Sorry I had not replied earlier but the good news is the company I bought the power supply of honored there warranty so they have sent the money back (as they are saying), so I am now on the look out for a new charger inverter for my 48 Volt bank banking on getting a 5 K VA which allows us flexibility with out power usage. 

[russ_drinkwater]

Halfway there Herman!
Good luck mate!