s/v Ninaa Ootakii - DC battery charger

[mike90045]

The lug was not my crimp, and did not fail, it was the wire under the setscrew in the bus bar.

That wire was installed by a licensed electrician that has done a lot of solar in the the area.  I check and inspect about every 2 years, and it was caught before any issues.

[australsolarier]

my fault, presumed wrongly.
ah yes cold flow, i always tighten twice. but, things can still get loose. infrared sensor is a good way to test connections und high current.

[Stone]

I've got hydraulic crimpers and proper connectors (2/0 and 4/0)

Spent all day today tightening up connections on the ac side of things, and the charger has been pushing 30a into the battery bank all day.

It has a couple pots on the front to adjust charge voltage, and turning one up a bit stopped the surge (guessing it's set too low)

72% and climbing.

[Vic]

Hi Stone,  thanks for the update.

So,  it seems a bit uncertain if re-torquing screw terminal to wire connections did any good,  or if it was turning one of the adjustment post on the charged helped.

One important thing to notice,  when re-torquing these connections,  is  just how much of a turn was required to get each of those terminals tight.

Glad that the charger seems to be behaving well,  now.   Thanks,   Vic

[Stone]

Pretty sure it was the charger being extremely inelegant about charging or not.

It would push 30a for a couple seconds, then drop, then repeat. ... I know my bank has a fairly high charge voltage, so the theory is that the "so old balmar has never heard of it" Balmar Super Charger dc-960-24 was simply going "batteries are full, turn off" then sensing they weren't and turning right back on again, since cranking up the float pot made it stop surging until I hit about 95% state of charge, which pushed 30-50a into my batteries pretty steady, per wiz bang jr.

Ultimately I found a screaming deal on a Promariner Pronautic 24v 30a charger (already have 3 of their 12v 30a) so I changed that out, and installed an a/b switch for the galley.

Basically, if I'm low on state of charge, fire the genny, switch the galley to it when cooking (or whatever) and it'll run my galley (by far my biggest load) while charging all 3 12v banks and the big 24v bank in the background.

Pretty much good to go on that front.

... now I need to figure out my wind turbines, lol.

Thanks everyone
-stone (s/v Ninaa Ootakii)

[Vic]

Thanks,  Stone,  for ther update.  Good that you have this issue resolved.   Vic