info@blackmountainforge.com said: > There is a company in the USA that manufactures a product called > BatteryTender - excellent float charger and maintainer. Costco sells them > for $40 How do those types of chargers work when there is a load? It's not the typical "float" there is also significant current going to the thunderbolt. -- These are my opinions. I hate spam.

I have for years powered much of my ham station with a 90AH SLA maintained with a homemade "smart" charger. I used an analog Astron 35A power supply (RS-35M) for its raw DC and series pass transistors with its regulator board replaced with a (now obsolete) AA Engineering smart charger board. This used a uC3906 IC for control. Capacity wise this was actually overkill for my application as the charger could supply the total load. Although many years ago I worked for the founders of Iota Engineering I have no interest in the company other than as a satisfied customer. That said, if someone wants to pursue something similar I can recommend their power supplies with their "smart charger" modules. (http://iotaengineering.com/power.htm) On 7/8/2016 12:08 AM, Hal Murray wrote: > info@blackmountainforge.com said: >> There is a company in the USA that manufactures a product called >> BatteryTender - excellent float charger and maintainer. Costco sells them >> for $40 > How do those types of chargers work when there is a load? > > It's not the typical "float" there is also significant current going to the > thunderbolt. >

-------- In message <5846a3c3-16d4-28ae-af9c-743ff895bfd0@triconet.org>, Wes writes: >Capacity wise this was actually overkill for my application as the >charger could supply the total load. If you go the LVDC route, your charger should be able to supply at least 150% of your full load, so that you can also charge the batteries after an outage... -- Poul-Henning Kamp | UNIX since Zilog Zeus 3.20 phk@FreeBSD.ORG | TCP/IP since RFC 956 FreeBSD committer | BSD since 4.3-tahoe Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by incompetence.

Best bet is to get 4 6v deep cycle batteries connect in series and connect a high quality power supply capable of supporting planned load and set output voltage to the selected 'float' voltage This will give you a setup which depending on batter rating could give you several days of backup power Content by Scott Typos by Siri > On Jul 8, 2016, at 12:53 PM, Wes <wes@triconet.org> wrote: > > I have for years powered much of my ham station with a 90AH SLA maintained with a homemade "smart" charger. I used an analog Astron 35A power supply (RS-35M) for its raw DC and series pass transistors with its regulator board replaced with a (now obsolete) AA Engineering smart charger board. This used a uC3906 IC for control. Capacity wise this was actually overkill for my application as the charger could supply the total load. > > Although many years ago I worked for the founders of Iota Engineering I have no interest in the company other than as a satisfied customer. That said, if someone wants to pursue something similar I can recommend their power supplies with their "smart charger" modules. (http://iotaengineering.com/power.htm) > > >> On 7/8/2016 12:08 AM, Hal Murray wrote: >> info@blackmountainforge.com said: >>> There is a company in the USA that manufactures a product called >>> BatteryTender - excellent float charger and maintainer. Costco sells them >>> for $40 >> How do those types of chargers work when there is a load? >> >> It's not the typical "float" there is also significant current going to the >> thunderbolt. > > _______________________________________________ > time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@febo.com > To unsubscribe, go to https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts > and follow the instructions there.