lifepo4 charging from generator

[native pepper]

In all the years have had lifepo4, never had a problem with charging, however we've had little sun for the last few weeks and my lifepo4 pack is now close to 12v with no sign of it being sunny enough to charge the system on the horizon for another week. To make matters worse, we've had very little wind, so the wind generator is also not providing charge. Have used the A/c once this year which is pretty remarkable as most years it would get used a lot during summer.

My question to all the knowledgeable sparky's is this, are there any problems with running a 40amp 240v charger into one of my 60amp lifepo4 solar chargers to feed the pack. Would do this using the workshop Lister generator, which is about 100m from the house and has been used in the past to run washing machines etc when the pack is at 13v and not much sun or wind. It runs on veggie oil and so have no cost to keep it going for any length of time and would also use it to charge up the bus pack and my portable pack, if doing it this way doesn't cause problems.

During the more than 20 years have lived here, never had the problem of little sun for weeks and the years before the last two, have always been mostly sunny winters and summers. The last two years have been very cloudy winter and summer, at the moment the sun hasn't come out for days. We've had 94ml of rain so far this month and according to my records, just over 1 hr of full sun and the temp outside, is 10deg today.

[Kappy]

Going to asked Terry the same question.

Been is SA for a couple of weeks, there has been some real cloudy days.

Booked in to CVP to use 240.

My inverter is a 40 amp charger but can't remember how to do it from my gen set, when I read the manual it didn't mention charging LiFePo batteries
so haven't done it.
Will be in Mannum on Wednesday.

[Mrcoolabah1au]

Yes ok thanks T1 May be able to help if he home yet

[Kappy]

March 11, I believe.

[dapope]

I have a 15 Amp jaycar smart charger. I just hook straight to the battery. I use the gel setting.
It has not caused any issues for me, but I disconnect at 14v

[T1 Terry]

I have a 15 Amp jaycar smart charger. I just hook straight to the battery. I use the gel setting.
It has not caused any issues for me, but I disconnect at 14v

About the best advice if the charger does not have a "power supply" setting because that will run at the max capable output till it reaches 13.8v, then it will trying to maintain the 13.8v as long as it has the output capacity to do it. Very little risk of a cell voltage runaway at 13.8v, a bit more at 14v but as long as you keep an eye on things that should be ok as well.
I'm not too sure about running a charger through a controller, the controller might block the output current from the charger while it got its act together and either damage the charger or cause a fault to appear because it can't see the battery voltage on the charger leads.

T1 Terry

[Peter and Sandra]

I charge my pack fortnightly when home and the Oka is in the shed with a 25 amp Projecta charger on either the GEL or power supply setting. Never had a problem in nearly eight years and it would be no different on a genny.
I've only once used a genny to provide 240v to the Oka in February this year after nearly a fortnight of overcast weather with little sun and batteries down to 25% it became a necessity and it worked just as it does on mains which is what I expected.

[native pepper]

Thanks everyone as it turned out, we've had a full day of sun which quickly charged the house pack and now it's back to normal with a couple of hrs each day of full sun so far. Have a couple of smart chargers, will use them directly to the pack if needed. Now we are back to cloudy days and its raining at the moment.

Terry that's what I thought may happen, it may stuff up the solar charger, so will use the smart chargers if need be and carry one on the bus for when there is 240v available. Thanks for your verification.