12V Charge Controller

by Flexcharge TM

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 4 x 3.8 x 1.8 inches ; 1 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• ASIN: B000C168ZS
• Item model number: NC25A / 12
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #40,218 in Electronics (See Top 100 in Electronics)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: March 2, 2009

Product Description

Protect your batteries from being over charged with this charge controller. Without it you could dramatically shorten the life of your battery / powerpack. Your battery / power pack has a limit on how high of a voltage it can see while charging. One term to describe this voltage is called the "Peak Charge Voltage". If you pedal too fast and generate too high of a voltage, then you could exceed the peak charge voltage and supply your battery with too much current. This would damage the cells inside and affect their ability to take a charge. In most cases the peak charge voltage for a lead acid / AGM (absorbed glass mat) battery / powerpack is somewhere near 14.8V DC (V= Volts DC= Direct Current). This NC25A charge controller has a diversion load output (diversion load slows down or provides a "braking" function to a wind turbine or over enthusiastic cyclist). I like hooking the diversion load up to one or two of these 1000-Watt work light stands. When the charge controller switches into diversion load mode, the current from the pedal power or wind turbine generator will be routed into the two 1000 W shop lights. You may be wondering "How many Watts will actually get dissipated into those two 1000W shop lights?". We can approximate that by assuming 15 Volts is what is coming off the diversion pin which would cause the lights to glow dimly and dissipate about 200 Watts of power. Many charge controllers can handle 25 Amps or more, but there aren't many that can handle a very high input voltage. This is because most charge controllers use FET transistors to do pulse width modulation. The lower cost FETs can only usually handle 35 to 45V max input voltage. The NC25A charge controller uses a mechanical relay to switch the voltage on and off to the lead acid battery and has a max input voltage of 140 Volts. After searching the internet I have found that there is no other controller selling for this price that can handle that kind of high input voltage.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great battery charge controller for the price, February 21, 2010

By 

B. Whaley (Phoenix, AZ) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: 12V Charge Controller (Electronics)

4 years ago I started using this NC25A charge controller for solar and pedal power. It has an easy to adjust charge threshold adjustment in case you want to charge gel cell batteries or AGM (Absorbed glass mat) batteries. Also I like the little light indicator on it which tells me when the voltage is too low, or when it is in diversion mode.

I have never seen a low cost battery charge controller with such a high input voltage threshold -of 120 Volts. Most charge controllers can only handle 30 volts to 60 volts DC before they blow up.

It also has a very high charge current of 25 Amps. This is not common for such a small charge controller where normally you would see large heat sinks to dissipate the heat from the power FET transistors doing the switching. This charge controller uses a small 25 Amp relay, which requires no heat sink. It also has some hysteresis so it does not chatter a lot when the battery is sitting right at the max charge voltage threshold.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great charge controller for solar wind pedal power, February 21, 2010

By 

S. A. Schmidt - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: 12V Charge Controller (Electronics)

This 12 Volt battery charger controller is a well designed, compact, and reliable. It is used on weather monitoring buoys in the Pacific Ocean with solar power. This use proves that this product has to be rugged and durable to be able to handle any type of weather conditions and the salty environment in the ocean. On top of its ruggedness, it has an unprecedented 5 year warrantee and very high max input voltage of 120 Volts. I have not found any charge controller on the marked that has either of these ratings that sell in the price range of this device.

I have used this charge controller in the construction of over 50 pedal power bicycle generator systems to charge Duracell power packs and have not seen one problem yet. I would recommend this product to any one who is trying to harness alternative energy and wants to charge lead acid batteries with it.