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Hi James,
2 amps is not too bad for an 8 tranny setup like yours. You can adjust it a but but as you said you will have months of fun learning how little changes affect things. It is just something that we learn from experience.
You should be able to charge the 65AH batteries, I charge 75AH and 100AH with my system. When running with the comparator you may find that you need to find the right balance between the frequency of the dump and getting it to charge. Let me explain from my experience.
I do not have a comparator like you have but my setup works in a similar way. I use an aurduino micro controller to set the timing of my dumps and have a meter to see the voltage so for my setup it is a manual adjustment. In other words mine does not have the logic to dump at "X" voltage, I adjust the time in ms and get it to dump where I want. With that said I generally will dump about as your does, 25-30 volts.
Now what I was getting at is I have found that there needs to be a balance of how much amperage the dump has and how often. If you have say 10a but only every 2 seconds it might not be enough to keep the charge moving, it will just sort of slosh back and fourth. On the other hand if you go too quickly say every half second, you will not get enough amperage to move it. Your system is different from mine but the point is depending on the size of the battery there are factors to consider, time between dumps AND the capacity of the dump (and of course voltage). To much or too little of either and you may not charge.
Anyway it is just something to keep in mind. Your comparator works differently in that you set a voltage and it takes care of the timing. For mine I can swap out capacitors and adjust the timing to get what I need to charge. Smaller cap = faster dumps at a voltage,, larger cap = slower dumps at same voltage but more amps.
Over all I think you are off to a great start and you will have a lot of fun with this. Don't sweat every detail, just learn from the machine. The gears switching is because of the impedance fluctuation in the cap and the rpm at startup. It is completely normal. If you were to install a pot in your trigger and run without the comparator you will get a better understanding of all that. When it is in first gear basically you are double spiking because of an induction tickling the base a second time.
Have fun man, you have built a great machine and it will serve you well!
2 amps is not too bad for an 8 tranny setup like yours. You can adjust it a but but as you said you will have months of fun learning how little changes affect things. It is just something that we learn from experience.
You should be able to charge the 65AH batteries, I charge 75AH and 100AH with my system. When running with the comparator you may find that you need to find the right balance between the frequency of the dump and getting it to charge. Let me explain from my experience.
I do not have a comparator like you have but my setup works in a similar way. I use an aurduino micro controller to set the timing of my dumps and have a meter to see the voltage so for my setup it is a manual adjustment. In other words mine does not have the logic to dump at "X" voltage, I adjust the time in ms and get it to dump where I want. With that said I generally will dump about as your does, 25-30 volts.
Now what I was getting at is I have found that there needs to be a balance of how much amperage the dump has and how often. If you have say 10a but only every 2 seconds it might not be enough to keep the charge moving, it will just sort of slosh back and fourth. On the other hand if you go too quickly say every half second, you will not get enough amperage to move it. Your system is different from mine but the point is depending on the size of the battery there are factors to consider, time between dumps AND the capacity of the dump (and of course voltage). To much or too little of either and you may not charge.
Anyway it is just something to keep in mind. Your comparator works differently in that you set a voltage and it takes care of the timing. For mine I can swap out capacitors and adjust the timing to get what I need to charge. Smaller cap = faster dumps at a voltage,, larger cap = slower dumps at same voltage but more amps.
Over all I think you are off to a great start and you will have a lot of fun with this. Don't sweat every detail, just learn from the machine. The gears switching is because of the impedance fluctuation in the cap and the rpm at startup. It is completely normal. If you were to install a pot in your trigger and run without the comparator you will get a better understanding of all that. When it is in first gear basically you are double spiking because of an induction tickling the base a second time.
Have fun man, you have built a great machine and it will serve you well!
I have bought a nice Bryman and an Extech now.
I'm really starting to think the batteries I bought for testing are garbage. I'll probably do some more COP testing in a few weeks and might post a youtube vid.
is taking a rest at the moment while I pull some energy out of it's charge battery. More good news is that these 12V Trojan's are coming good! I can now top 2 of them on my TST5 after having pummled them with my Comparator and Radiant charging. The other 2 haven't been in the rejunation cycle that long but I'm sure they will come good as well.
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