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I have a 24V, 10 year old system that I was using in my shop, but have now moved it to my new houseboat. The system consists of two 100W panels tied to a Tristar MPPT 45 controller with a battery bank of two 12volt agm batts, both 110 AH. I had a Samlex 2425 charger that has cratered. The MFG will sell me a refurbished unit for about $200 plus shipping from Canada. My question is: Since this is a houseboat and I don't anticipate having to charge the batts often because I will be running on a genny most of the time, what would the group recommend for a basic 24V charger? I really only intend to use the charger to desulphate the batts occasionally and anticipate most of the charging will be done by the controller. Any advice would be appreciated.
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Ended up buying a Noco Gen5X2 which is a two bank 12Volt charger/maintainer/desulfate device after an extensive online chat with a Noco rep. He said it should suffice to fit my needs if I exercise caution when I put if in desulfate (repair) mode by disconnecting other applications and breaking the series connection in the battery bank. The alternative was one of their 24V devices which would cost $500+ vs $100 for the Gen5X2. Any comments? -
I’m not a fan of breaking the connection to charge the batteries.
Anytime a connection is broken a risk is taken that a wire or cable would break, or there could even be excessive arcing depending on what is connected to the battery.
I would prefer to charge the batteries 24 volts in series. Then a multimeter check would show if they are balanced, and if not either get a balancer if this will happen frequently, or if charging is not done much, charge over the 12 volt battery with nothing turned on and no charge from the MPPT.
What does your battery spec sheet say about desulphating a battery? In an FLA battery the flakes break off and fall to the bottom and in AGM, with nowhere for the flakes ro fall, it’s less effective. Also if this causes the electrolyte to bubble, the water can’t be replaced like it can in a FLA battery.
IMO, the desulphating an AGM battery ought to be left to endo fo life recovery unless the spec sheet says.Comment
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