Are my equalization settings right.

[peakbagger]

My two 48 volt paralleled FLAs total around 1000 Amps capacity total on my solar trailer. Using the midnight solar controller that came with the trailer I can select manual Equalization. There is a 7 KW diesel on the trailer. From "Float charge" on the charge controller display it took about 1 hour to equalize (start to complete). I think It read 1.3KW of charge current during equalization (but not sure what the value referred to) Having no reference, is this "good" for the batteries or "bad"? I have not messed with the settings it came with. There is a sunny island inverter that supposedly counts cycles and auto engages an equalization but to date I have not seen it do this and have not tested that function, I assume that is why autoequalize is disabled on the charge controller as the sunny island starts the diesel as needed. The batteries get light use and have desulphators so I am trying to do a manual equalize every 3 months, is this too often or not enough? The batteries are outdoors and it gets cold in northern NH. My assumption is keep them charged preferably on float all winter?

Once I wade through the settings and add another expensive 50 AMP power cord I can skip the diesel and equalize from the grid. My guess is the Midnight Solar controller will draw the same amperage for the equalization be it from the 7 KW diesel or from the grid?.

I plan to check SGs tomorrow. They were good the first time I checked 3 months ago.

[Mike90250]

The diesel on the trailer, likely is a 240VAC generator, that feeds the Inverter generator input and the inverter charges/EQ's the battery. The Midnight Classic only accepts DC from PV panels.

There is a quirk on the Classics that came on the trailers, they are a stripped down version, but I think they have ethernet and you can use the ethernet, a router and a computer to use the midnight Local App ( free) to record the current setting of the classic, and then be able to re-load them at a future time. The classic has a coin battery 2032 ? that holds the settings in memory, when it's gone, the classic looses all settings, and must be reprogrammed, which is why the local app is very handy.

[peakbagger]

Thanks. Something is strange as the Inverter was powered down completely while the equalization did its thing via the charge controller. The diesel is definitely 240VAC. I guess I need to download the info on the Charge controller one of these days.

[Bala]

There are old posts from Sunking on equalization and the same info is available on the battery university website.

Basically on that info an equalisation is only done when cell sg varies more than .03. Monitor temps and keep going until sg no longer rises.

when I had fla I followed that and only equalised when needed, often 6 months or more.