Progressive Dynamics 9130 converter/charger

[Terry M]

Just got back from a trip to the Upper Peninsula. It was a 13 + hour drive from Illinois to Michigan and when I arrived at the campground I discovered that my Scamp battery was dead. The fuse for the truck/trailer charging circuit was bad and since the refrigerator draws 10.5 amps it was not surprising that the battery was discharged. Hooked up to shore power, replaced the fuse and wondered how long it would take the Progressive Dynamic PD9130 converter/charger to charge my Scamp’s battery. After going on the PD website I discovered that the PD9160 converter (60 amps vs 30 amps for 9130) takes 70 hours at 13.6 volts to fully charge the battery. Not good, but PD sells a Charge Wizard #PD9105 – that has a boost mode (14.4 v) that will charge a battery to 90% full charge in 2-3 hours. I bought one, $28 on Amazon, installed it and it works as advertised. Check out their website, lot of good info. Terry

[Larry C Hanson]

Hello,

If you are using a deep cycle battery it is best not to charge
them too quickly. Common practice dictates not charging
at a rate above Capacity/5 (100A battery = 20A charge) to
get maximum battery life. I use C/10 and find that the
batteries last 5-10 years using wet cell Trojan T105s.

Larry H

[gordon2]

Originally Posted by Larry C Hanson

Hello,

If you are using a deep cycle battery it is best not to charge
them too quickly. ...

Which is not to say that the Charge Wizard is not of benefit. I got one for the function that helps to prevent sulfation. Of course you need to be on shore power for this function to work (I think).

The circuity that the charge wizard adds to the converter is built into their higher end converters.

[Terry M]

According to the PD website when in boost mode (14.4v) after the charge reaches 90% the charger returns to the normal 13.6v normal charge rate to complete the charge. PD converters have a built in TCMS (Total Charge Management System) that automatically changes the charge rate (normal mode – 13.6v - boost mode- 14.4v and storage mode - 13.2 v); and when in storage mode the charger goes into desulfation mode; 14.4v for 15 minutes every 21 hours. I am not pushing PD products, I have 2 days experience with the Charge Wizard but I also don’t want to wait 70 hours to charge my discharged battery. When I put it in boost mode the charge rate switched back to 13.6v after a couple of hours (started charge with 12.4v battery voltage). I don’t know if it will kill my batteries or not, but I have the same type of smart charger on my boat AND when cruising the engine alternator puts out 14.4 volts and I got 7 years out of my first set of Optima deep cycle batteries. I am not a battery expert and only posted this info because I thought that since a lot of us own Scamps with the PD9130 converter it would be useful. Terry

[Bob Miller]

Both the PD-4045 and the PD-4065 mini power chassis incorporate the charge wizard into the converter. No pendant needed.