Charging system help

Submitted: Tuesday, Jan 17, 2012 at 20:19
ThreadID: 91275 Views:5764 Replies:7 FollowUps:10
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Hi all,
I've been reading along on this forum for a while now but this is my first post.
I currently have a 100w folding panel, a 120ah full river agm and a cheapo 3 stage regulator.
I suspect that the regulator is not performing correctly as it only occasionally enters float mode even when there is no load connected to the battery. It just sits on absorption mode which is obviously harmful to the battery. I've had this setup for around 4 years now and as solar has been my only source of charge the battery has very rarely been left fully charged, especially through winter when it has been left in the shed. Rested voltage has never dipped below 12.2 (usually between 12.4-12.6) though so the SOC has always been relatively high, just rarely 100%.
I recently purchased a projecta 25amp charger and am extremely happy with it. I set it to 6amps, selected AGM and it charged the battery and had sat in float mode ever since.
I'd like to build on my rudimentary system and end up with something more sophisticated and useful. I'd like to replace the solar regulator and I'd like to add a dc-dc charger as we often drive for 5 hours after work on Friday to camp for the weekend. As I've only been able to charge the battery by solar when I get time on weekends this means the battery is going l week with no charge and then loaded with the fridge Friday arvo and getting no charge till sunrise Saturday morning. At least now I can use the ac charger to keep it topped off until we leave.

As for the regulator. I guess I'm tossing up between the morning star mppt 15amp and the steca PWM 15amp. The 15amp leaves some room for growth and I like hte display on the steca. I'd have to fork out more for the MPPT and then more again for the remote display so that I cancer what's going on but it might be worth it as we camp a lot in winter. Any advice here would be good. I don't want to start an argument though.

I'm looking at the Projecta DC20 for my dcdc charger as I'm super happy wih my acdc charger and my inverter. It appears to do everything I want it to, will be mounted in the cabin an has a wiring option to charge only after the ignition is on.

Lastly I'm after some advice on linking it all together. I figured I could stick an anderson plug on the battery and each charger and plug it into whichever charger I want to use at the time. I also thought there might be a way to have three Anderson inputs on the battery and be able to wire up some sort of voltage sensitive circuit that will only use one charger and pick the best option at any time giving preference to 240v. Or maybe that is too difficult/expensive to bother with.

Thanks so much for any help.

Benen
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