iota charger on mod sine wave inverter?

[Blackcherry04]

It's about time someone made a proper battery charger for deep cycle batteries. Something like ... oh ... a MidNite Classic but with an AC input.

You'd get no argument here. I just bought a Magnum MM-1512 and remote thinking I'd have a 70 amp charger I could control the output on. The problem is when the charger in gauges no matter what you set the output to it goes to wide open and then will settle back to the percentage of output you have set. The problem with that on a Honda EU 2000 it kicks out a fault and you have to shut the generator down and try again. How can a 70 amp charger go up to a momentary 143 amp output, when you have it set to 20 % output ?? ( that is what the remote shows ). With the ECO off it will start, but still does the same thing.( goes to wide open output ) All this weirdness just makes it pretty much useless.

[Cariboocoot]

Outback's built-in chargers have their quirks, but they don't do that!
I'm not familiar with the Magnum programming, but there ought to be an input limit setting on it to prevent overloading the gen. A percent of the charger's maximum is only half the equation; what about the loads that are passed through? Is there no setting for maximum AC input current? There should be.

[Blackcherry04]

Outback's built-in chargers have their quirks, but they don't do that!
I'm not familiar with the Magnum programming, but there ought to be an input limit setting on it to prevent overloading the gen. A percent of the charger's maximum is only half the equation; what about the loads that are passed through? Is there no setting for maximum AC input current? There should be.

In this case I don't even have a output of the inverter hooked up and it's shut off on the remote. You can set the power share to 5 amps or 60 amps, it doesn't seem to matter, when the charger ramps up goes to wide open then settles back to the percent setting you have programmed for the charger.

I bought it thinking, how nice it would be to have a variable output charger to compliment a Honda's EU 2000's output so you could run variable loads.

[BB.]

Sounds like it is time to call the factory for tech support--That does not sound right (and I have not heard that complaint before).

-Bill

[inetdog]

Sounds like it is time to call the factory for tech support--That does not sound right (and I have not heard that complaint before).

-Bill

Do you have the output of the charger directly connected to the batteries? I could understand this behavior if there is a diode between the charger and the batteries so that its electronics are not getting any power until you turn the AC on. Most CCs specify that they need to be connected to the batteries first before the input (AC or DC) is energized.

[Blackcherry04]

Do you have the output of the charger directly connected to the batteries? I could understand this behavior if there is a diode between the charger and the batteries so that its electronics are not getting any power until you turn the AC on. Most CCs specify that they need to be connected to the batteries first before the input (AC or DC) is energized.

It's hard wired to battery bank with #2 cables. I am going to try one more thing and put a load in the inverter output and see if that makes any difference in the charger. You can see the inverter pick up the AC input and the charger shows 0 amps. The display will show 4 amps as the charger kicks in and then it will just go wild. Like I said I have seen 143 amps showing on the display before it kicks out.

[techntrek]

A comment on your use of your truck as the end-game power supply. That's fine for the occasional camping trip for an hour charge every other day in camp to get from 50% to 80% (which you would probably do faster just using jumper cables), if you don't have a genset. But to do this often I would take your own suggestion to get a Honda inverter-genset. You'll get much better fuel economy per watt that way.

[inetdog]

It's hard wired to battery bank with #2 cables. I am going to try one more thing and put a load in the inverter output and see if that makes any difference in the charger. You can see the inverter pick up the AC input and the charger shows 0 amps. The display will show 4 amps as the charger kicks in and then it will just go wild. Like I said I have seen 143 amps showing on the display before it kicks out.

Very strange indeed. Looking at the 1512 on the interweb, it seems to be an inverter/charger. The "then it just goes wild" sounds a bit like the Magnum trying to invert and charge at the same time and chasing its own tail.