Inteli Power PD9200 Power Converter

Just like alternators and solar panels, the rating is often theoretical.

Long as you factor in the actual output in design and pricing, I don't see that as a major issue.

User-custom setpoint adjustment is pretty rare, also battery temperature sensors/ compensation in that price range.

Not like they're charging the usual $500+ for those features. 

You're showing a lack of knowledge in standards, specifications and test & measurements. The ratings of alternators and solar panels are not theoretical. Far from it. Their ratings are reproducable under specific operating conditions.

I'm not aware for any person who has gotten rated current in bulk mode from their PD converter. This is a design flaw.

It is an issue if you rely on charging battery from the genny. Charge times can take quite a bit longer.

john61ct said:

Just like alternators and solar panels, the rating is often theoretical.

 

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Calbiker is correct certainly about the output of the PD9245 as connected and used in our RVs. You will seldom get much more than 8 - 10 amps output to the batteries. Yes, I have measured mine with the Fluke. When I got the first Battle Born LFP I also got a PD9145 ALV charger. I played with it long enough to know it does in fact put out 45amps when charging the Battle Born, measured with the Fluke. It only tapers very slightly as amps delivered drop near 0 and in 30-45 minutes the things are charged and I measure 0 amps output.

The other note about the inadequacy of the PD9245 is that you need the remote pendant to force it into appropriate charge mode if you have solar and you want a genny charge. Indeed the PD9245 is poor in dry camping but the remote pendant did make it feasible but still a long time to recharge. If you want to stay with "traditional" FLA or AGM and dry camp often you need a real charger because the PD9245 is not gonna make you happy. In most of the View rigs you can put a new charger in and use the cable from the inverter - just operate it manually when you run the generator for a simple install. A good charger will not cost much more than a PD9245. Leave the PD9245 in place and turn the breaker off.

Solution: LiFeP04 batteries with a real charger made expressly for that purpose. I operate the PD9145ALV manually when I turn on genny. I turn it off manually and shut down genny. The original PD9245 is in place but is turned off. Less rewire needed.

The other thing to remember is that you can't exceed the internal resistance charge parameter for FLA or AGM. In other words putting in a 300amp charger for those won't do any better than a real 45 - 55 amp charger will in terms of time needed. I have heard more than once that it is better to use the OEM PD9245 to recharge from the genny run than an external charger - wrong - if you have a real external charger. The point is that those folks really must think the PD9245 charges at 45 amps but in reality about a fourth or less of that and then you must manipulate the charge stage with the remote pendant to even get that. The marketing lit from PD is really misleading about the 9245.

The amount of current actually supplied to a lead bank is not usually determined by the charge source, but limited by the Ah size, CAR of that chemistry and SoC / resistance.

Amps are pulled by the load - in this case the bank, not pushed only offered by the source.

Of course if with LFP - much higher CAR - it tries to pull more than the maximum the source can supply, then the current limiting feature of the source comes into play.

Some sources do this poorly, effectively shutting down charging, or even letting out the magic smoke.

But not decent units sold as chargers.

Yes in part to reply, the amps measured by the Fluke are current flow to the battery. Yes you are wrong - partly. There are two parts in the push/pull thinking. The voltage differential causes charge to flow, not a push or pull of anything. The voltage drop in most installs of the PD9245 in our rigs does play a part. In other words if the PD9245 is charging at some magic voltage of 13.8vdc and you run a small ga wire, say 8ga, to the batteries over 20 ft for a 40 foot or more circuit there is voltage drop. The lower the voltage at the delivery to the battery the less amps will flow into it for charge.

So, the higher voltage of the charger does indeed provide the voltage differential which allows the current to flow or charge the batteries. The Li batteries are not "pulling" anything, the charger is providing high amps at a higher voltage than the Li batteries, the potential difference causes current flow. Since Li batteries have extremely low internal resistance that current flows at full potential until the voltage (potential difference) equalizes. In the case of the Battle Born the BMS is internal and the batteries shut off charging internally.

Obviously voltage drops should be minimized.

My point was wrt to the above complaint that charging lead was at a slower rate, that is not under the control of the charger.

The voltage should not be increased to try to charge faster, it takes 6+ hours to fully charge a deep cycled lead bank,

even going to a source that "makes available" 500A and going to a higher CAR lead chemistry won't save more than a half hour, for the last few hours after ~80% SoC, the rate will drop lower and lower.

With a LFP bank where the BMS is not throttling amps, it will try to **pull** that full 500A, which is why you'd need a charge controller that can derate the current to one healthier for both the bank and the other infrastructure, ideally well under 0.5C unless at very high temperatures.

The current demand will not start to drop much until the last few minutes, after 98+% SoC has been reached, depending on the rate you set.

The charge source should be regulating all this including the charge termination.

Stupid to let any of the BMS protections to kick in, those should be kept as reserve / failsafe use only, not for normal cycling.

If you care about longevity.

john61ct said:

Obviously voltage drops should be minimized.

My point was wrt to the above complaint that charging lead was at a slower rate, that is not under the control of the charger.

The voltage should not be increased to try to charge faster, it takes 6+ hours to fully charge a deep cycled lead bank

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I disagree with that - If you have a'converter' which maxxes out at 13.8 volts, your charge times are always going to be much longer than need be . . . . and if you're charging using a genset, you'll be wasting lots of fuel

Any good smart charger will start off in bulk mode well above 14 volts and a higher voltage does mean more amps supplied to the battery bank. My 55 amp charger will supply 45 amps to my pair of T-105's to start and even after half an hour it will be in the 30 amp range - The current naturally goes down as the batteries charge. If you do get rid of your 'converter' and switch to a smart charger, you will most certainly have to do some rewiring, because RV manufacturers know for sure the converters they put in them are never going to supply their rated current to the batteries, so they always under size the wires they run between the converter and the batteries - If your new smart charger will attempt to push 40 or 50 amps toward the batteries, only a fraction of that will actually make it there and the rest will be lost to heat in the wires

Don

Alphacarina said:

If you have a'converter' which maxxes out at 13.8 volts

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Have you read the thread?

No one here is talking about those horrible old things, anymore than old school garage chargers with no intelligence.

As stated above:

john61ct said:

There are plenty of modern "converters" that have all the features an quality of top notch chargers, in effect the same and perfectly suitable for even a very pricey deep cycling bank.

The crappy old ones should be ditched of course.

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Yes, I'm reading every word. billbo says to charge faster, you should raise the charger output voltage . . . . and you say that should never be done . . . . and I disagreed

billbo said:

In other words if the PD9245 is charging at some magic voltage of 13.8vdc and you run a small ga wire, say 8ga, to the batteries over 20 ft for a 40 foot or more circuit there is voltage drop. The lower the voltage at the delivery to the battery the less amps will flow into it for charge.

So, the higher voltage of the charger does indeed provide the voltage differential which allows the current to flow or charge the batteries

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Don

If you think I suggested AGM should ever be charged at a voltage lower than the mfg spec, I'd like to see that.

Maybe I crossed wires thinking someone was talking LFP?

Or maybe you misunderstood something.

Not that I was plugging this PD charger series specifically, but it does include their Charge Wizard, so its stges will take care of AGMs just fine.

Personally I only use charge sources that enable user-custom setpoints, but that is a very rare feature in low-end gear.

billbo said:

Yes in part to reply, the amps measured by the Fluke are current flow to the battery. Yes you are wrong - partly. There are two parts in the push/pull thinking. The voltage differential causes charge to flow, not a push or pull of anything. The voltage drop in most installs of the PD9245 in our rigs does play a part. In other words if the PD9245 is charging at some magic voltage of 13.8vdc and you run a small ga wire, say 8ga, to the batteries over 20 ft for a 40 foot or more circuit there is voltage drop. The lower the voltage at the delivery to the battery the less amps will flow into it for charge.

So, the higher voltage of the charger does indeed provide the voltage differential which allows the current to flow or charge the batteries. The Li batteries are not "pulling" anything, the charger is providing high amps at a higher voltage than the Li batteries, the potential difference causes current flow. Since Li batteries have extremely low internal resistance that current flows at full potential until the voltage (potential difference) equalizes. In the case of the Battle Born the BMS is internal and the batteries shut off charging internally.

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Are you suggesting the PD9245 can't charge at higher than 13.8V? I've put mine in Boost Mode with the Charge Wizard Pendant a few times recently when the sun has been absent, and the charge voltage to my twin 12V Relion RB100-LT batteries exceeds 14V immediately according to the One Place voltage display and my ZAMP ZS-30A charge controller. So, I'm pretty sure it has the capability to output more voltage/current on it's own, or on demand. From the PD9100/9200 Series OM...

"9200 - The full rated load is available for load, battery
charging or both. When functioning as a regulated
battery charger the converter has a nominal voltage
output of 13.6 VDC for 12 volt models and 27.2 VDC
for 24 volt models. The system is designed to sense
voltage on the battery and automatically selects one
of three operating modes (normal, boost and storage)
to provide the correct charge level to the batteries.
BOOST MODE: If the converter senses that the
battery voltage has dropped below a preset level the
output voltage is increased to approximately 14.4
VDC (28.8 VDC for 24 volt models) to rapidly
recharge the battery.
NORMAL MODE: Output voltage set at
approximately 13.6 VDC (27.2 VDC for 24 volt
models).
STORAGE MODE: When the converter senses that
there has been no significant battery usage for 30
hours the output voltage is reduced to 13.2 VDC
(26.4 VDC for 24 volt models) for minimal water
usage. When in storage mode the microprocessor
automatically increases the output voltage to 14.4
VDC (28.8 DC for 24 volt models) for approximately
15 minutes every 21 hours to help prevent sulfation
of the battery plates.
"
I use the PD9245 and the ZS-30A combo to maintain the 2 lithiums and it seems to work pretty well, particularly when the sun does shine (not so much lately up here in Canuckistan).
Unless I'm missing something? I'm not as well versed in this stuff as some of you seem to be, and I'm very interested, as I "have 2 dogs in the fight".

Well...my dog died a few weeks ago, one day short of birthday 14, RIP Mobius aka Klaus Lord General Schappi, a great 92 lb GSD male. Tomorrow we pick up Mia, a trained 3 yr old GSD female.

Now, nope I never suggested anything of the kind about the output of the PD9245. Amazing how forum things get twisted around because we are not speaking FTF (face to face) but not unusual. The bulk charge mode (correct terms) is not at 14.4VDC, but around 13.8 depending on electronics. During this phase you normally get to over 85% of max or 85%-90% SOC. The last few amp hours need more potential difference to allow current flow to overcome internal resistance in FLA and AGM so the voltage is bumped to 14+ or around 14.4 in the PD9245 (at least mine). Those measurements with solar turned off with the non OEM breakers I installed. Note that you do not want to be at 14.4 during bulk charge with high amps flowing because that generates heat. Heat causes boiling of electrolyte. All that is why most FLA and AGM recommend .5C as max. So I do NOT recommend putting the PD9245 into the 14.4 volt mode with the remote pendant for BULK charge because you will boil the electrolyte, instead put it into BULK charge voltage at 13.8, some run at 13.6. The labels they use on the remote pendant are confusing and WRONG for normal speak about charging FLA and AGM batteries. Now - iff you are charging a LFP battery with the PD9245 you should indeed put it into 14.4 volt charge mode but recognize that is not high amps charge mode so you are defeating the time benefit of recharge of the LFP.

For me it was ridiculous to use the PD9245 to try and charge the BB LiFeP04 chemistry when the PD9145ALV was available, made expressly for the Li batteries with the best charge specs and shortest time and a safe recharge. Will the PD9245 HURT your LFP? No, but it will take much longer to recharge them because it will not provide optimal charge amps and voltage for LFP. So I can get mine recharged in 30-45 minutes with the PD9145ALV and shut down the genny and forget about it until the next AM.

Finally I recommend you ignore everything in the literature about the PD9245 since they use terms which defy understanding and it simply does NOT work as they describe. You want to understand how the industry talks about battery charging and normal terms, go to battery university and read up. Then pull out your FLUKE, clamp onto the battery leads and measure what it is doing in each mode you select with the remote pendant. You want to start with a discharged battery, around 50% SOC, step through each mode on the PD9245 and measure voltage and amps flowing with the shunt clamp of a good FLUKE around the most negative battery lead. OH - you do have a good Victron installed to measure (educated guess) the SOC of your battery bank? Well, with LFP it is different and the voltage chart is available online to guess-i-mate the SOC of the LFP. This test done with solar OFF, disconnected, breakers off if you have installed them.

BTW, Storage mode in PD terms means FLOAT to the rest of the world
NORMAL = BULK
BOOST = ABSORPTION (final charge stage to get that last 15% or so pushed into the battery in FLA or AGM)

During ABSORPTION phase of FLA or AGM you should see the amps taper down to near .5 amps or less going into the battery and at this time the PD 9245 will drop into FLOAT mode at 13.2 very low amps. Some call this maintenance mode as well but only PD calls it storage. PD is the only folks to call absorption boost? Blew my mind but that's easy enough. Now when PD says "when the converter senses voltage drop below a certain level" they are referring to the fact that the internal resistance to charge in FLA and AGM batteries increases with the SOC and 13.6 is not enough potential difference to overcome that internal resistance so it is "boosted" to 14.4VDC to allow the remaining amp hours to flow in although at a much lower amp rate to prevent excessive boiling of electrolyte.

It is all different for LFP, you just want one stage at say 45 amps and high voltage.

So, ignore the specs for the PD9245 completely, but you also say "For me it was ridiculous to use the PD9245 to try and charge the BB LiFeP04 chemistry when the PD9145ALV was available, made expressly for the Li batteries with the best charge specs and shortest time and a safe recharge."? So those specs are acceptable to believe, but not the PD9245 from the same company? OK.
You're also suggesting that the ZS-30A and the One place voltage/amperage displays aren't as accurate as your FLUKE/Victron add ons? So, ignore the 14.3V I see on them when I hit them with Boost Mode with my pendant? Ignore that too?
OK, I think I understand now.

Sorry to hear about your dog.

The thread OP question was wrt AGM only, so any issues with LFP are an irrelevant derail.

Personally I only go higher than 13.8V on LFP in rare circumstances anyway and never hold a CV / Absorb stage for more than a few minutes

and already stated only buy sources with user-custom setpoint adjustment, which I believe even the pendant does not offer here.

I think many disagreement here are from the misunderstandings / misinterpretation of in-depth discussion over general principles.

The answer to the actual OP question is definitely yes, maybe not perfect but this "converter" charger unit is fine if configured and installed properly for giving good care to a deep cycling AGM bank.

The three mainstream brands that have decent longevity in such a use case, in the NA market, are Lifetime, Northstar and Odyssey.

_____
As for the general discussion on basics, **of course** a low-SoC bank will keep the voltage lower than the CV/Absorb setpoint during the CC/Bulk stage.

That is by definition and the timing on this transition has nothing to do with the regulating power source.

At a say 0.6C charge rate with no concurrent loads to service, it will take place in the first couple hours, requiring many hours of AHT of a 7+ hour cycle to get to endAmps.

At a low enough rate (or lots of concurrent loads) AHT may be under an hour to get there.

Again, just chemistry, SoC, CAR, voltage resistance and current rates, nothing to do with the type of charge source.

Winterbagoal said:

So, ignore the specs for the PD9245 completely, but you also say "For me it was ridiculous to use the PD9245 to try and charge the BB LiFeP04 chemistry when the PD9145ALV was available, made expressly for the Li batteries with the best charge specs and shortest time and a safe recharge."? So those specs are acceptable to believe, but not the PD9245 from the same company? OK.
You're also suggesting that the ZS-30A and the One place voltage/amperage displays aren't as accurate as your FLUKE/Victron add ons? So, ignore the 14.3V I see on them when I hit them with Boost Mode with my pendant? Ignore that too?
OK, I think I understand now.

Sorry to hear about your dog.

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I did not mean to sound like an expert, whatever that is. Remember if you follow the thread I said I actually hands on tested the PD9145ALV and it does in fact output 45 amps at the correct voltage - just like their specs. I also note that the spec for the PD9245 is misleading - not ALL their spec sheets. The Fluke I am using is industry standard, model 375 FC. It measures amps very accurately and has bluetooth graphing to the cell phone, tablet etc. Capture a run, produce a graph. Yes, the One place is only a joke for measurement as is the ZS-30A however they provide adequate information to most to see what is happening. The Victron or other good shunt SOC meter will provide you a very good estimate of your battery SOC. None of which matters a hoot unless you are dry camping or want to actually know about how many amp hours you take out and put back into your battery bank. You see and should understand that what you see on the ZAMP display may or may not be voltage from the PD9245 when the sun is out and the panels are providing "juice" to the controller. What you will have is two sources of power to the batteries, solar and converter if both are on. Now if the converter was on first or if you use the pendant you can force it into what they call boost mode. So is that the converter or the solar controller voltage? How do you know, perhaps the solar controller is running in true absorption mode as well... Well in another post I went into great detail about the dual charging issues. Each, the Zamp controller and the PD9245 is measuring voltage at the battery. If one is charging it is providing a false reading to the other. The remote pendant helps overcome that by allowing you to put it into Bulk or Absorption mode depending on your choice so that regardless of the other power source it provides what you ask for. That will also "confuse" the solar controller since it runs and chooses it's algorithm based on measured voltage at the battery as well.

Not being a problem I hope but giving some food for thought. The Oneplace and the Zamp are good for estimates but no, not very accurate. In most things I am like the guy from Missouri - show me. I tested both devices, one meets spec and the other will work for most but is somewhat misleading. If you are happy then don't worry about me, I'm good to go. I would like the rain and cold to slack off a bit so we can get out in the rig a while. Right now it would need pontoons to move around.

We don't even want to talk about the precision bypass shunt of the Victron and similar devices but they are capable of providing a very excellent way to monitor battery SOC if you keep battery health and age factored in. The cheap clamp meters sold are decent for the dollars and while the Fluke is also a clamp or induction reading it is well calibrated and useful for most testing like this. Again a discussion for FLA and AGM, not LFP.

Multiple disparate concurrent charge source do not in fact cause any serious issues

no matter how one may "confuse" or slow down output of the other, it all works out in the end.

But yes you **can** manually force CV / Absorb voltage to hold if you need to get done as quick as possible,

just with "sealed" batteries do not go overvoltage or hold CV past the spec'd endAmps point - as measured at the battery post

or you will reduce the bank lifespan.

Well, what exactly is a serious issue? No, multiple charge sources will not do any damage but if you are dry camped and want to charge the batteries after an overnight run and the solar is producing charge and then you start the genny to get a charge from the converter- yes, that's a POTENTIAL issue because the converter measures the voltage at the battery to determine what charge state to enter and it is measuring the voltage from the solar controller.

With the PD9245 you must get the remote pendant, WGO did not ship it with the View, it is available from Amazing.com for about $11 US. That will allow you to put the converter into the correct charge mode, BULK or Absorption. If you put it in Absorption you can boil electrolyte but it's your batteries, not mine. Well, if you have FLA. What I did was install a breaker on each negative side of the solar controller. Run the genny, put the converter in bulk mode for that run of a few hours, shut it down and let solar do the absorption during the day. That procedure worked very well with the big Trojan FLA batteries I had. If my SOC was too low for the evening run of the fridge and other things I did a two hour run of the genny in the evening generator hours at the camp. The big deal is not to get behind the curve or you eventually loose or go find shore power. That's where the SOC meter is very helpful. I like the shunt meters and others use something else but either way you need to keep up if you are dry camped. Again, a discussion for FLA and AGM. Remember the PD9245 has no user set points, the only way to fudge it at all is the remote pendant. Without the pendant to change the mode of the PD9245 it just drops into FLOAT so there you go running the genny for two hours and nothing much happens except burning diesel and making noise. The other alternative would be to add a real charger as I mentioned and use the inverter cables, short run, heavy ga wire, no voltage drop, efficient charge. You can go to .5C but check with your battery mfg. If you are only getting 10amps from the PD9245 you will fall behind the curve or run the generator a lot. You need more amps/hr with my rig because of the compressor fridge or you will fall behind the curve. I had 300AH, 150 usable and after 3 or 4 days I had to find shore power or run the genny all day. I could have put in another charger or I could have gone LFP with a good charger, the later made more sense but cost more dollars. I suppose you could also depend on solar and add a better solar system as well. On a good solar day I had little problems, solar could give me 50-65 amp hours harvest as the rig shipped, it varies as you know. The thing is you are also using amp hrs during the day running the fridge and whatever else you use so it is a bit harder to keep up than it sounds. You must replenish what you took out during the night run and supply operating amps and recharge amps during the day. That makes a real charger capable of 45 amps output highly desirable to minimize generator run time and LFP takes every amp fast. With FLA and AGM you still need good solar to keep up, good charger and good solar, with the compressor fridge.

gohusaberg said:

Actually, I was referring to battery preference. My converter is a very modern one. Also, seems like you can get a heck of a loot more AH from 6 volt batteries and they are cheaper.

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You get more Ah at 6V. But when you put them in series to raise voltage to 12V you don’t get any more Wh = Ah x V.

No, nothing to do with that.

6V batteries in general are both more powerful and longer-lived. Better quality, more robust, stand up to abuse better, don't require more expensive charger etc to care for them.

And lots cheaper to buy, both per Ah @12V when you buy them, and especially **per year** because they do last longer. Not all of course, but everything being equal, you need to buy good quality true deep cycling either way, and it does **not** necessarily need to cost you more.

Knit said:

You get more Ah at 6V. But when you put them in series to raise voltage to 12V you don’t get any more Wh = Ah x V.

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That is unclear. Two 6V 200Ah units,

in series still 200Ah but now 12V

in parallel 400Ah but only 6V

1200Wh in both cases.

To get 400Ah and 12V, buy 2 pair and connect as 2P2S

As 4S you get 24V, still only 200Ah, but 2400Wh.

All clear? Hope it helps

Ahh, the thread that keeps on giving.

Actually I would say it very simply, batteries in parallel you add the amp hours together and the voltage remains the same, example: connect 2 100AH 12 volt batteries in parallel and you have 200AH 12 volt battery with 100 AH usable for 50% SOC. The voltage remains 12 volts.

Batteries in series the amp hours remains the value of ONE of the batteries but the voltage is doubled. Example: Connect two 100AH 6 volt batteries in series and you have a 12 volt 100AH battery with 50AH usable to reach 50% SOC, the voltage is doubled but the amp hours is the value of ONE of the batteries.

Now that is not apples to apples unless you compare true quality deep cycle batteries. You may indeed have two 12volt batteries in parallel for 200AH that are not deep cycle and the thin lead plates will not carry the load very long and they will fail under constant deep discharge.

For those without major amp consumer appliances like the compressor refrigerator the normal advice is to go with two GC2, golf cart, batteries from Sam's, Costco or which ever brand you prefer. If you dry camp with other considerations like a CPAP and compressor refrigerator your needs will lead to more amp hours available. There are many considerations to take into account but if you have a compressor fridge and you want to dry camp for example you need two quality deep cycle 12 volt batteries to offer enough amp hours to run the things. Like two Trojan T-1275 at 150 AH each. The cost for those locally at a golf cart shop was $300 and that included tax, or $150 each. Golf carts at Costco went up to near $100 each in the last few years, don't remember Sam's price but those are different brands, pick the one you like and there are arguments for either side. LiFeP04 Battle Born went on sale for a while but are now back at $900+ each. The normal batteries WGO shipped in the 2018 View models were not deep cycle and very low amp hour capacity, not very well suited for the task which is not unusual in the RV world. Today we are seeing options available in the View models, in other mfgs rigs as well which include LFP, AGM, many better options at a cost. All due to the increasing popularity of the compressor refrigerators and the challenges presented in camping with them with no shore power.