Fogstar lithium charge (5 Viewers)

[BusyBuilder]

Just had a 250watt solar, 280ah battery and associated solar and b2b fitted at offgrid. Have travelled 70 miles on mostly motorway. And battery is at 125amps on display.
Should it take this long to charge ? Not used much 12v power in 4 hours.

 

[fishplug]

All depends on what your DC-DC charger can put out and what the state of charge of the battery was when installed.

Lithium batteries cannot be shipped above 30% charged which would put your battery at around 85A in the bank when it was shipped.

Let's assume that your supplier / fitter hasn't put in any extra charge (something that I would personally do as a courtesy in their shoes but hey ho..)

Let's say it's taken a little over an hour to do your 70 miles that would mean that you've put in 40A in an hour.

That wouldn't sound unreasonable to me - depending on what your b2b is supposed to be capable of putting out.

All depends on that initial state of charge though.

This is partly why I went for the CTEK DS250+Smartpass because it will put out 120A which makes a massive difference to larger battery banks.

 

[BusyBuilder]

Battery was on 240v charge for maybe 4 hours max ?

 

[Tombola]

what amps is your b2b or make.
if its victon 30 amp orin then it will be adding around 30 amps per hour of driving.

you need to know what amps were in the battery to start with and what amps each charger is outputting

 

[offagen]

I had a 280Ah Fogstar and Victron B2B (50A) installed by Offgrid five or six weeks ago. Yes, fishplug is right, you leave Offgrid with a battery that is part charged and it takes time (even with the B2B) to fully charge it. By the time you are back in Alness, if not sooner, it will probably be near fully charged but it seems to take a few charging cycles to reach its maximum soc.

If, for some reason, it’s still not near full charge after a week or two of use it’s probably best to speak to Nigel. Hopefully you won’t need to.

Edit: Just as an additional note, I’ve been very pleased with the performance of the Fogstar and B2B. They have coped admirably with quite a lot of off-grid camping and, despite making good use of the Victron inverter, the soc rarely falls below 90% and is soon recharged by solar and journeys between camping spots.

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[StillGoing]

Battery was on 240v charge for maybe 4 hours max ?

What amp charger was it?

 

[fishplug]

What amp charger was it?

Hmm...

Even a cheap 10A charger should have put 40A in over that time.

Again, assuming it came at 30% charge before that, you'd expect it to have been at or around the 125A even before driving off.

Then you've got an hour of driving that should have put another chunk of power into it. Not sure on the b2b capacity, but my DS250 puts out 20A without the Smartpass so I'd expect at least another 10-20A from that - and that's not taking into account the (admittedly low at this time of year) yield from the solar.

It does sound like something might not be quite right, but we don't really have all the facts and are just speculating. I'd be asking the question to Offgrid who will know what was fitted and what you should be expecting in terms of charge.

 

[barryd]

Watching with interest as Im thinking of going there for the same set up. I thought lithium charged much faster.

 

[Flairy]

I think you need to get in touch with them ,then you’ll be certain.

 

[MichaelT]

I would say you need to.put on EHU (assume it's got a lithium profile) for 24 to 48 hours to get fully charged. Mine took a couple of days.

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[PlacidoD]

Watching with interest as Im thinking of going there for the same set up. I thought lithium charged much faster.

It is capable of charging faster than other battery types. How fast it does it depends uon the amperage of the input devices in particular fhe alterernator and EHU.

 

[BusyBuilder]

We are travelling around and no access to ehu yet. I did ask this morning at Offgrid before we left and he wasn't concerned as it was overnight. But thought after an hour or so on motorway it would be charged a bit more.

 

[MichaelT]

We are travelling around and no access to ehu yet. I did ask this morning at Offgrid before we left and he wasn't concerned as it was overnight. But thought after an hour or so on motorway it would be charged a bit more.

You said it was on mains charger for 4 hours?

If you had the victon 50a B2B that will put 50a in so to charge a 280a (305a) battery you will need to drive for 4 or 5 hours non stop to fully charge then a bit longer for absorption and finally float assuming it was 30% (90a) to start. Give it a few days hopefully with some sun and a bit of driving.

 

[Tombola]

I'm sure RogerIvy will tell you where it was charged to when installed

 

[ChrisL]

You haven't mentioned what size of alternator you have, I don't think the B2B can supply more amps then the alternator can provide. Did Offgrid supply and fit the B2B? If not it may need some tweaking to get the best performance from it.

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[Raul]

Is your fridge on during travel? I bet you are not putting in as much as you think, after you account for the loads as well. If you haven't got a shunt, you are at the mercy of the bms. you need a full charge with good absorb time to have a reference point to relate to.

 

[fishplug]

I hadn't considered the power draw Raul - a good observation.

 

[TheLifeofBrian]

All depends on what your DC-DC charger can put out and what the state of charge of the battery was when installed.

Lithium batteries cannot be shipped above 30% charged which would put your battery at around 85A in the bank when it was shipped.

Let's assume that your supplier / fitter hasn't put in any extra charge (something that I would personally do as a courtesy in their shoes but hey ho..)

Let's say it's taken a little over an hour to do your 70 miles that would mean that you've put in 40A in an hour.

That wouldn't sound unreasonable to me - depending on what your b2b is supposed to be capable of putting out.

All depends on that initial state of charge though.

This is partly why I went for the CTEK DS250+Smartpass because it will put out 120A which makes a massive difference to larger battery banks.

Hi, not wanting to hijack this thread but my GEL batteries have died & I have a CTEK DS250S DUAL & a CTEK smartpass system and am thinking of going for Lithium. Do you know what the difference is between the D250S and the D250SE & 120S smartpass?
I haven't heard of the DS250+ was that a typo and do you have lithium or GEL/AGM batteries?
PS I am looking at Lithium with the advanced BMS technology.
cheers
Chris

 

[BusyBuilder]

Looked at the victron app and said my victron bms is switched off remotely or by bms? No idea why or how to switch it back on.
I've no dea what my alternator is, how do I find out ?

 

[ChrisL]

Looked at the victron app and said my victron bms is switched off remotely or by bms? No idea why or how to switch it back on.
I've no dea what my alternator is, how do I find out ?

Did you have a victron battery fitted? If charging on the battery is turned off then that's why it's not charging.

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[Lenny HB]

Is your fridge on during travel? I bet you are not putting in as much as you think, after you account for the loads as well. If you haven't got a shunt, you are at the mercy of the bms. you need a full charge with good absorb time to have a reference point to relate to.

On his Hymer DL the fridge will be powered from the relay in the ELB so assuming a 50 amp XS B2B he should be getting near to 50 amp charge.

70 miles 1½ hours driving will only put a max of 75ah into the battery.

 

[Carpmart]

Have you checked in the Bluetooth app that you have charging set to enable or on?

 

[Raul]

On his Hymer DL the fridge will be powered from the relay in the ELB so assuming a 50 amp XS B2B he should be getting near to 50 amp charge.

70 miles 1½ hours driving will only put a max of 75ah into the battery.

The power still has to come from somewhere to that relay, is either the b2b or battery.

 

[Lenny HB]

The power still has to come from somewhere to that relay, is either the b2b or battery.

The alternator is 160 amp so plenty of power avalible.

 

[autorouter]

I thought lithium charged much faster.

Lithium is capable of being charged much faster than any equivalent lead-acid-based battery. That means it's OK to fit a more powerful charger. But if you stick with the same charger it will charge at the same rate as before.

If you don't have a B2B, and are charging from an alternator via a split charge relay, the alternator doesn't control the amps like a B2B does, so the charging amps might be higher in that case. If the battery is very flat then the amps might be excessive, causing overheating of the alternator.

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[Raul]

The alternator is 160 amp so plenty of power avalible.

You mean it bypasses the b2b straight from alternator?