Does anyone use US 220 volt outlets for direct FES battery charging???

[Matt Herron]

Has anyone charged FES battery pacs directly from a US 220 volt outlet without resorting to a step-up transformer?

The reason I ask: My home airport (Air Sailing, Nevada) is off the electrical grid and powers all its associated buildings and facilities via a diesel generator, a large solar array, and two banks of storage batteries. The system works pretty well, but needs regular supervision and tweaking. Recently Air Sailing was visited by a Silent Electro FES, and when the owner attempted to charge his battery pak, he blew the whole electrical system, and it was down for hours. I don't completely understand what happened but something about the combination of a step-up transformer and the 9 amp load did for the system.

So currently Air Sailing will not allow any FES charging whatsoever. Since my MiniLAK will be delivered this winter, I've petitioned the Air Sailing Board to undertake the creation of a stable FES charging station. Current thinking is that going direct to 220 volt power is the preferable route, but US 220 volt wiring is different from standard European 220 volt systems.

In this country, one gets 220 volts by combining the hot wires from two different 110 volt phases with a common ground. A single ground works for both phases because the alternating current allows the ground to handle both circuits. When I ran a welding business, I routinely jimmied job site electrical boxes to create a 220 volt outlet for my welder. The process was simple and only took a few minutes. I have such an outlet in my home and have been planning to use it for FES charging.

That said, I have no idea whether the FES chargers supplied by Luka will work with US 220 voltage systems. (Or maybe blow them up??)

Thus my question.

[Lynn Wyman]

Matt, My charging setup is a step up transformer, into which I plug both chargers. Each charger uses just over 9 amps for a total of about 18.5 amps. I always use a 20 amp, 110 volt outlet and have no problems. You could always just employ one charger at a time on a 15 amp, 110 volt circuit but it will take twice as long. I usually charge two 50% batteries in about 2.5 hours. Lynn

Sent from my iPhone

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Lak FES" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to lak-fes+u...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to lak...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/lak-fes/966cfce0-7230-44fd-b393-a28892a9759a%40googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

[Jeff Banks]

Matt
That was probably me w the Silent 2 Electro at your field. As I understand it. My step up transformer kicked one phase off line from the solar arrays. This caused the generator to start. The generator charged the batteries just fine. One of the members took photos of my charging equipment w intent to solve the solar array phase trip.

I hope a 220 FES charging station works out. I think there will be more of these over time.