Odyssey (or general Battery) Maintenance Charging

steveoverland

New member
Hi folks, hope your all well. I have a 300tdi defender with dual pc1500 odyssey batteries, charged by a ctek split charge with Smartpass, ctek MXS 5 battery Charger when connected to mains and solar power when camping. Sadly, once again, the battery that is connected to the fridge and other none vehicle electricals has died, this is the second one in three years, so is getting expensive. Anyone have any thoughts on what could be causing this???
 

RandyP

Adventurer
Hi folks, hope your all well. I have a 300tdi defender with dual pc1500 odyssey batteries, charged by a ctek split charge with Smartpass, ctek MXS 5 battery Charger when connected to mains and solar power when camping. Sadly, once again, the battery that is connected to the fridge and other none vehicle electricals has died, this is the second one in three years, so is getting expensive. Anyone have any thoughts on what could be causing this???
Could be failure to recharge the battery to 100% SOC at least weekly, and possibly using the battery below 50% SOC routinely. Plate Sulfation. DO you ever Equalize charge the battery ?
 

steveoverland

New member
Could be failure to recharge the battery to 100% SOC at least weekly, and possibly using the battery below 50% SOC routinely. Plate Sulfation. DO you ever Equalize charge the battery ?

Hi here, thanks for the reply.


i don’t know what that means if I’m honest. My battery charger pulses the plates to prevent sulfaristation If that’s what you mean.
 

vomhorizon

Active member
So I just installed a PWM solar charge controller in my vehicle as a back up charging source for my solar panels. My main/aux battery unit is portable and has an inbuilt MPPT which will accept charge from the single roof mounted solar panel. When the aux battery is not in the vehicle, I want to use the hard mounted panel to keep the Odyssey Group 34 battery topped up with the PWM CC. Interestingly, the OEM recommends the "Gel" profile for charging my AGM because it doesn't equalize which is not required for these batteries.

Is there any reason not to consider the Sealed or Flooded setting for this particular charge controller? Odyssey recommends that charging sources between 14.2 and 14.7 v (float at 13.6-13.8v) but prefers 14.6-14.7 v for optimal charging. I'm having a hard time figuring out why the Flooded setting would not work for this battery. It equalizes once every 28 days or so, but the equalization voltage is the same as boost voltage (both are 14.6v) and both are optimal as per Odyssey. Could the 14.6 v equalization voltage in the flooded or sealed configuration have an adverse impact given that it will be delivered when the battery is connected and under (a modest) load? I don't plan on deep-cycling my AGM heavily. It will serve as a backup to my aux battery on rare occasions it runs out of juice, and will at most power (when ignition is off) a couple of low draw camp lights for a couple of hours at night.

Am I missing something? Just wanted to get a sense of what folks here think as far as the battery profile parameters in the CC that match what Odyssey recommends.
 

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jonyjoe101

Adventurer
For the odyssey you can use any profile, the 14.6 volts equalization (is very modest to non existent) . My odyssey I topped it off to 14.7 volts every morning, so 14.6 volts is no big deal for such a battery. While bulk charging check the voltage at the terminals, you might be surprise to find the battery might not be reaching 14.4 volts, in that case you might have to use the "user profile" where you choose the bulk voltage.

I recently bought a new controller "makeskyblue 60a mppt 125 dollars" that controller has a feature where you can calibrate the voltage on the controller to the battery terminals. It works excellent. On the ecoworthy mppt (shown on picture has no calibration) to reach 14.6 volts on the battery terminals, I have to set the bulk setting to 15.5 volts. I bring it up because thats 2 controllers that I used that had voltage drop. So you might want to verify the renogy is putting out the correct voltage, and its reaching the battery with no voltage drop. If the controller goes into float mode too soon, thats a good sign you got voltage drop.

The big problem with solar charging and lead acid is undercharging your battery because of voltage drop. High performance agm need the recommended voltage especially at the high end for odyssey which is 14.7 volts.

If your worry of overcharging your battery, you can use a 6 dollar overvoltage protection relay, this relay measure the voltage directly from the terminals, if the voltage climbs above your max battery voltage setting (example 14.8 volts) it pulls a relay that disconnects the solar panel. I use this on my lifepo4 but it will work with any battery. diagram a.jpg
 

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