Progressive Dynamics or not?

[Vintage465]

So I'm always looking to my next upgrade for my charging of the 4-6v GC batteries. Knowing that the WFCO converter my rig came with is next to useless on it's own, add to that the fact that there is 18' of #8 wire to drop the theoretical charging voltage from a possible 14.4 to 13.4.

If I went to a Progressive Dynamics retrofit I'd be re-conductoring to #1 or #2 wire from the converter to the batteries. I was reading that their charging profile is to pack 14.4 or 14.6 volts to 90% of the charge. Then somewhat float it up to 100% with 13.5-ish volts? To me this doesn't really seem like that great of "wizardry" even though it's called the charge wizard.

For those of you who've installed them, how well does the wizardry work? I would only be using it when there isn't enough sunlight to get at least 90% with my solar. When we were at the Mojave Desert for Thanksgiving this last year I could have used it one day to bring my batteries to 100%

Thoughts?

Thanks,

[Full.Monte]

There are a fair number of people here who trust the Progressive Dynamics Brand. Just make sure the charging profile is multi-step, and that the last stage is trickle charge with anti-sulfonization.

[keymastr]

They are true 4 stage chargers but you already have solar doing the same thing often enough to make this upgrade redundant to a degree. Still, a nice upgrade if you want a project. If you are just doing it for the batteries I would wait until you replace them with AGMs or lithium. Spending more than the batteries cost to make them last 6 years instead of 5 is not a great return on your money in my opinion.

[Highway 4x4]

Call Randy at BestConverter.com . Tell him what you have and what you want to do. He will set you up. Their websuite has lots of info on it also.

[S.A.E.]

Originally Posted by Vintage465

So I'm always looking to my next upgrade for my charging of the 4-6v GC batteries. Knowing that the WFCO converter my rig came with is next to useless on it's own, add to that the fact that there is 18' of #8 wire to drop the theoretical charging voltage from a possible 14.4 to 13.4.

If I went to a Progressive Dynamics retrofit I'd be re-conductoring to #1 or #2 wire from the converter to the batteries. I was reading that their charging profile is to pack 14.4 or 14.6 volts to 90% of the charge. Then somewhat float it up to 100% with 13.5-ish volts? To me this doesn't really seem like that great of "wizardry" even though it's called the charge wizard.

For those of you who've installed them, how well does the wizardry work? I would only be using it when there isn't enough sunlight to get at least 90% with my solar. When we were at the Mojave Desert for Thanksgiving this last year I could have used it one day to bring my batteries to 100%

Thoughts?

Thanks,

Sam's club off-the-shell deep cycle batteries (I don't recall which brand), in parallel, perfect condition with annual cleaning and watering after nine years of hot hot summers and below zero winters.


I ordered a wiz for my second camper.

[richard5933]

I've got two of the Progressive Dynamics chargers - one for the 12v house battery bank and one for the 24v chassis battery bank. Charge Wizard on both. I've also got the remote Charge Wizard dongle on both.

In my experience, the chargers will cycle through the main three stages of charging each time they are plugged in. Once they are at the float stage (13.2v for the 12v charger, for example) they will go up one level if they sense the voltage dropping on the batteries.

The remote dongles are really nothing other than a way to manually switch the charger from one phase to another. This is handy for times when you know the batteries are fully charged. For example, you are leaving a campground with fully charged batteries. You drive one hour to the next campground, and plug in. When the charger is turned on again, it will default to the top of the cycle and begin charging at 14.6v. But, you know it doesn't need to run the full cycle so you can use the dongle to go back to the float mode.

On occasion I've had to manually reset the chargers by unplugging them. Happens sometimes that if I am using a lot of 12v appliances and pull more than the charger can put out the batteries will run down a bit, but the charger misses its cue to up the charge voltage. Since I have a 70a charger on my house battery bank it doesn't usually happen that I'd use more 12v power than the charger can supply without tapping into the batteries.

[Vintage465]

Originally Posted by keymastr

They are true 4 stage chargers but you already have solar doing the same thing often enough to make this upgrade redundant to a degree. Still, a nice upgrade if you want a project. If you are just doing it for the batteries I would wait until you replace them with AGMs or lithium. Spending more than the batteries cost to make them last 6 years instead of 5 is not a great return on your money in my opinion.

Lithium won’t ever be an option do to the inability to locate them in a controlled environment. They’d be in 7 degree cold and 110 degree heat out side. I may go to agm batteries some day when these croak. But I’m really only looking to have to option of firing up the generator and charging up the batteries thru the converter and actually have it charge effectively. I don’t believe my current set up would charge effectively.

[billyw]

I was able to keep up with the needs of my two 6v batteries with my oooold WFCO converter and 150 watts of solar, just barely on occasion. I had purchased a PD9260 14.8v version when my WFCO started acting up. It definitely charges much faster, and I believe it cares for the batteries better. I like that I can charge them fully in significantly less time. I didn't replace cabling at all, but am still reaping the benefits of the sustained higher voltages.

Definitely a good project. I had intended to install the PD unit in parallel to the WFCO, but ended up just replacing the failed unit.

[Waiter21]

I had similar problem with charging. I had an older single stage converter that put out 13.6 volts all the time.

The problem I had was I needed to be able to charge the coach batteries quickly when running the generator for an hour. the single stage wouldn't do it.

I replaced the original converter with a PowerMax-55. It has three stages. It sequences through these stages when power is applied to the converter:
14.7 volts for 30 minutes
13.8 volts for 24 hours
13.2 volts trickle

I also added a monitor so I can watch the voltage and current flow (charge or discharge)

Need to upgrade Coach 12 volt power system – 1999 Southwind 35S

NOTE - I discovered an issue this year. In the trickle mode, the converter was putting out around 13.15 volts. My BCC needs to see at least 13.2 in order to connect the chassis battery to the coach battery (keeps the chassis battery charged while on shore power). I needed to make a small adjustment to the converters output voltage output to correct this.

Low voltage from 3 stage converter causes problems – 1999 Southwind 35S


..

[richard5933]

Originally Posted by Waiter21

...NOTE - I discovered an issue this year. In the trickle mode, the converter was putting out around 13.15 volts. ...
..

Any chance you're seeing some voltage drop from bad/dirty connections or undersized wiring?

I've chased issues like this trying to make adjustments, only to find a corroded connection point causing the problem.

[Vintage465]

Originally Posted by richard5933

Any chance you're seeing some voltage drop from bad/dirty connections or undersized wiring?

I've chased issues like this trying to make adjustments, only to find a corroded connection point causing the problem.

Initially there was a loose connection @ the converter. Where the #8 conductor connected to the lug it was loose. And I've verified the connections in the J-Box in the belly of the rig, all good. But in reality, that is really moot. There is still 18+ feet of #8 conductor that is undersized for any real charging. I'll be trying to get to 13.2(float), by using 13.4 volts by the time it gets to the batteries. It's not a matter of it not working, it works as good as it can. It's a matter of it being a crummy converter and not stout enough conductor. My inquiry is really about the PD unit and it's charging profiles. Just seems kind of odd that it uses 14.4 volts to take it to 90% and doesn't just hammer it with 14.4 volts all the way to 100%?

[richard5933]

Originally Posted by Vintage465

Initially there was a loose connection @ the converter. Where the #8 conductor connected to the lug it was loose. And I've verified the connections in the J-Box in the belly of the rig, all good. But in reality, that is really moot. There is still 18+ feet of #8 conductor that is undersized for any real charging. I'll be trying to get to 13.2(float), by using 13.4 volts by the time it gets to the batteries. It's not a matter of it not working, it works as good as it can. It's a matter of it being a crummy converter and not stout enough conductor. My inquiry is really about the PD unit and it's charging profiles. Just seems kind of odd that it uses 14.4 volts to take it to 90% and doesn't just hammer it with 14.4 volts all the way to 100%?

Question:

Can you move the charger closer to the batteries? Switching the 18+ feet of 12vdc cable for 18+ feet of 120vac cable will greatly improve the performance of any charger you put in there.

My understanding on the charging profile is that last 10% takes quite a bit of time compared to the first 90%, and by dropping the voltage at the end there is less stress on the batteries and less chance of boiling away the water in the batteries or over gassing.

[Mark Thomas]

I have been happy with our Charge Wizard. I ran #12 exterior rated Romex from the shore power inlet up to the cross over in our 5er. #2 cable thru the front wall of cross over to the batteries, no more than 4' of wire. We don't have any solar and have two Type 27 12 volt dura cell deep cycle batteries. We camped this last Feb. on the California coast. It was warm enough to not need the furnace during the day, but it came on 3-4 times during the night. We ran the lights we needed and watched a movie each night. The batteries were about 65% each morning and the charge wizard recharged back up to 90% with only about 1.5 hours of running time with our EU2000 generator. It would take maybe 6 hours for our original charger to recover that well.
A major caution I would suggest. Will you ever want to have an inverter to supply 120V AC to your trailer? If so you should not buy the charge wizard, purchase one of the inverter/chargers on the market. They have smart charging multi stage technology AND will also provide your 120V AC. It is much simpler to install only that single unit rather than try to have two separate devices that likely will not play well together. I learned that lesson the hard way.
Have fun!!! Mark

[Vintage465]

Originally Posted by richard5933

Question:

Can you move the charger closer to the batteries? Switching the 18+ feet of 12vdc cable for 18+ feet of 120vac cable will greatly improve the performance of any charger you put in there.

My understanding on the charging profile is that last 10% takes quite a bit of time compared to the first 90%, and by dropping the voltage at the end there is less stress on the batteries and less chance of boiling away the water in the batteries or over gassing.

There is not enough room up in the pass thru of my little rig for the converter. Really, running the heavy gauge cable is easy....or at least, not a big deal to me. And thanks for the explanation of the last 10% so it doesn't stress the battery.