Sterling PCU-1230 Question

Kentsun

Hi
I have recently bought the sterling PCU-1230 battery charger to keep my battery bank maintained over the winter months, I don't know if it's just me being a bit thick (answers on a separate sheet please ) or is the manual a little vague in some area's ?

I was looking set the charger to do a manual De-Sulphation, but couldn't find out how, except for the 21 day programmed mode.

I emailed Sterling directly and got the following answer, Select the battery type as lead acid, start desulphation.

Ok, so I probably wouldn't be doing a De-Sulphation cycle if I didn't already have lead acid, and as for starting the cycle, I wouldn't be asking if I knew how to start it !

Any help greatly appreciated.

BB.

Re: Sterling PCU-1230 Question

Desulfation is typical thought to work with very sharp pulses or high frequency content (such as the sharp edges of a square wave).

A powered desulfator may have a "square wave" or a pulse train (basically zero current with a short shot of current).

A battery bank desulfator may have a very sharp current draw pulse at 1-100's of times a second.

Here is a forum with some nice scope pictures that show the "high frequency ringing" that is believed/postulated to cause the hard black lead sulfate crystals to re-integrate back into acid/lead plate (or fall from plate--Not sure of the reasoning).

A desulfator should not hurt the battery (unless powered from the battery bank, then the load of the desulfator will discharge the battery bank a bit).

A desulfator of any type, does generate electrical noise. Which can cause some electronics problems (noise in audio circuits, MPPT charge controllers to read battery voltage inaccurately, etc.).

Just hook up your battery charger and enjoy the desulfating... You should not see any difference between that and regular charging.

-Bill

vtmaps

Re: Sterling PCU-1230 Question

BB. wrote: »

Desulfation is typical thought to work with very sharp pulses or high frequency content (such as the sharp edges of a square wave).

As far as I can tell, the Sterling 'desulfation' cycle is what we typically call 'equalization'. I have no idea what 'absorption time factor' is in the following table:
Attachment not found.

--vtMaps

inetdog

Re: Sterling PCU-1230 Question

Possibly the Absorption Time Factor is the number which is multiplied by the length of the most recent Bulk stage to derive the time to spend in the Absorb stage?
This assumes that because of concurrent loads or other reasons it is not practical to use an End Amps measurement to terminate Absorb.