Tuesday, January 15, 2019

Finagling: My first Buzz Charge from DIY connecting the solar charge controller to the Chafon

So when I first got the Chafon 500 watt lithium battery generator then I realized the cables with it did not connect up to the Harbor Freight charge controller, nor the panels. I recently posted how I was able to directly connect to the Harbor Freight solar panels to then charge up the Chafon battery.

Last night in conversation with the affable customer service representative at Chafon, then I realized that the "maximum input voltage" to the Harbor Freight 20 amp solar charge controller is 22 volts. So the Chafon battery needs a maximum input of 18 volts. This meant that if I used the charge controller above 18 volts, the controller would "step down" the volts while maintaining the amps of the higher voltage. That means I would get a few more volts out of the bicycle generator and therefore maybe half an amp more in power.

So today I first had to custom make some connections to fit into the charge controller. Once they were made then I had to power the charge controller with the Chafon battery. But I realized I had to use an "output" port off the Chafon and then into the charge controller. So I put all the cables down in front of me and studied various connections - and finally figured out something that would work.

So then I had the DC output powering into the Harbor Freight charge controller - and as I held the cord to keep the positive and negative from touching - I got a buzzing sensation! Not too strong but strong enough to surprise me. Still no power from the charge controller!!

So I realized the Harbor Freight charge controller must be broken - it must have never worked in the first place, and I would have to return it. Suddenly I remembered how when I first considered the Chafon connection to the charge controller, I noticed that the wires were turned around from the positive to the negative. This really surprised me - but it had to do with the adapters being used causing the male and female to switch around. Then I had discovered a review on Amazon pointing out the same thing. The person stated they had to make their own wire connections to connect the Chafon to the solar charge controller and they did not get any power. But then they reversed the wires and they got power.

So I took a leap of faith based on my own previous discovery of the wires seemingly being switched and this review comment I had read corroborating my discovery. Sure enough I got power to the charge controller - and NO buzzing charge sensation!!

Wow - finally I got the charge controller working. But now that the battery was powering the charge controller, I had to figure out how to recharge the battery via the charge controller. The problem is - ok now that I think about it - well the DC output is 5 amps - and I could hook it into a female SEC and that into a female cigarette adapter - and then THAT into a male cigarette DC and that into the Solar Input on the Chafon battery.

Oh wait - I tried doing that on some level - I plugged into the DC output of the charge controller - and so anyway.... I guess I didn't try that configuration.

My point is that it takes all sorts of finagling and all this just for a few increase in volts? 4 volts? No I'm not gonna go back and change all my wires around again. haha. Oh then things got crazy since I realized - well if the wires were reversed for the SAME cord that I used to power the DC motor into the Chafon - then maybe if I reverse the wires then the charging will go faster in the bicycle. Maybe the reason the charging was so slow before was because the positive and negative were reversed!

So I tried this and the Chafon made just one quick noise and seemed to go into "power fault" - but it's hard to tell since the power fault light is the same as the power light.

It's a dual use LED which when green is normal, but when red, is a fault.
OK so I didn't "trip" the fault - or if I did it went back to green right away.

Anyway when I then bicycled the charge light did not come on. So I realized - no this is not working. So I switched the wires back to normal. Then I realized my error. The wires were reversed for the power going OUT of the Chafon to then power into the charge controller. But for the DC motor generator then I was sending power back INTO the Chafon. Which means the wires should be normal since the power direction was reversed.

Holy smokes! So then I got out the multimeter to see what my 18 volt limit was for speed on the bicycle and it was the SAME as before - the lowest speed on the bicycle. So that is good - I was getting a charge signal back again on the Chafon.



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