Using Heavy Duty power supplies as chargers

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2Guido
2Guido Solar Expert Posts: 62 ✭✭
in Solar Beginners Corner #1
Have 2 Heavy Duty 12volt 55amp power supplies (used in a car retail audio demo room) and wondering if I can use then to supplement my Daily Solar load on cloudy days. So, question is..Can they be connected directly to the 12v batteries (parallel of course) or should they be connected through a heavy duty diode to the battery chain...or connected into the Charge Controller parallel wired with the solar panels ...or throw them on ebay ???

Thanks...you are the BEST !!!
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  • niel
    niel Solar Expert Posts: 10,300 ✭✭✭✭
    #2
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    Re: Using Haevy Duty power supplies as chargers

    i don't see why you couldn't supplement with it if it is a quality supply. some supplies don't like the very low resistance the batteries would look like to the supply. have you tried one of them to the batteries? the better ones have both a voltage and current potentiometer. be very sure there is a fuse in line.
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  • 2Guido
    2Guido Solar Expert Posts: 62 ✭✭
    #3
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    Re: Using Haevy Duty power supplies as chargers

    Sorry for the bad spelling in the title...No I have not yet tried it but in theory it should work. There are no adjustments on them......will post my findings ..Tks
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  • NorthGuy
    NorthGuy Solar Expert Posts: 1,913 ✭✭
    #4
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    Re: Using Heavy Duty power supplies as chargers

    Batteries need more voltage than 12V. So if your power supplies only do regulated 12V, it won't work. Most of the time, batteries have voltage higher than 12V, so, if anything, current will flow backwards.

    If you use a diode, it will add 0.7-1V voltage drop, and then you would need even more voltage from your power supplies.
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