Programming And Using The Mate For Flexnet Operations - Outback Power Systems FLEXnet DC User Manual

Programming and Using the MATE for FLEXNet DC Operations
At initial power up, use the MATE (see pages 17-28) to program:
• Battery Bank 20 Hour Capacity (provided by the manufacturer) in amp hours (from 100-
10,000 amp-hours in ten amp increments)
• Battery charge parameters
• Return amps: See the manufacturer recommendations or set to 2% of the battery bank
amp hour capacity (e.g. a 1000 amp hour battery bank would set the return amps to 20.0
amps)
NOTE : Older battery banks might require a higher value if the system end of charge amps does not
drop to the 2% level.
• Battery End-of-Charge Voltage: See the manufacturer recommendations or set .2 volts lower
than the system absorb voltage for 12/24 volt systems and .4 volts lower for 48 volt or higher
systems
• Battery Charge Factor (BCF)
• The BCF compensates for recharging ineffi ciency from gassing and heating losses to
assure the battery state-of-charge (SOC) display is accurate by scaling it; the BCF is
programmable from 65% to 100% (see page 29).
• If the SOC percentage displays full before the batteries' user-determined charge settings
are met, decrease the BCF percentage; increase it if the SOC is low.
• The default setting is 94%, meaning 94% of the charging current is being used for
recharging and 6% is lost. OutBack suggests maintaining the default setting until the
FLEXNet DC has monitored the system through a few charge/discharge cycles.
• Setting the BCF to 100% eff ectively disables any BCF display changes.
• Charge Parameters Met Time
• During this period, the charge parameters must meet or exceed the user-set charge
parameters before the battery is considered full.
• Programmable from 0 to 240 minutes
• Setting this time to 0 eff ectively eliminates any fi ltering provided by this timer. The fi rst
time the charge parameters are met, the unit will consider the parameters met and
perform accordingly.
• The default setting is one minute. Longer or shorter periods may apply to
certain sources such as wind generators or hydros.
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