burgerfeet
New Member
Hi all,
I am about to install a pure sine inverter into my van as part of a conversion. Have used them in the past connect to a second battery that is charged by using a simply split/charge relay arrangement. This time however I hoped to do it in a much neater fashion by using voltage/current sensing of the alternator output level. All this is connected to a 16F877 (with LCD display) that does the monitoring and switching of the charge relay with added relay contact change over sensing. Not sure of the reasons but simple split charger circuits seem to suffer premature failure.
My question is, if I were to monitor (not control) the current flowing into the second battery whilst charging would this give me a good indication of charge state. I believe that if I monitor the charge current and it drops to 1/10th of rated battery Ah, one could assume that the battery is charged (with 12.65V terminal)????
The reason for this I have know in the past secondary battery's gas-off (potentially explosive) if constantly charged when not required. My reason for wanting to do this is that for the majority of the time the second battery will not be loaded so I wish to avoid unnecessaily over-charging it.
I realise that I could just charge it for n time, disconnect it, apply a load for n time then retest to determine battery output but for this project this is a little overkill.
Any advice would be appreciated!!!!!
Many thanks,
Andrew
I am about to install a pure sine inverter into my van as part of a conversion. Have used them in the past connect to a second battery that is charged by using a simply split/charge relay arrangement. This time however I hoped to do it in a much neater fashion by using voltage/current sensing of the alternator output level. All this is connected to a 16F877 (with LCD display) that does the monitoring and switching of the charge relay with added relay contact change over sensing. Not sure of the reasons but simple split charger circuits seem to suffer premature failure.
My question is, if I were to monitor (not control) the current flowing into the second battery whilst charging would this give me a good indication of charge state. I believe that if I monitor the charge current and it drops to 1/10th of rated battery Ah, one could assume that the battery is charged (with 12.65V terminal)????
The reason for this I have know in the past secondary battery's gas-off (potentially explosive) if constantly charged when not required. My reason for wanting to do this is that for the majority of the time the second battery will not be loaded so I wish to avoid unnecessaily over-charging it.
I realise that I could just charge it for n time, disconnect it, apply a load for n time then retest to determine battery output but for this project this is a little overkill.
Any advice would be appreciated!!!!!
Many thanks,
Andrew