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Before you jump into our explanation of charging a flat battery with an ePOWER charger, consider joining our community Facebook group – Enerdrive Unplugged. Designed to be an educational tool, you’ll find a wealth of knowledge and a supportive environment to ask questions and get advice from veteran users and our own highly qualified staff!
The ePOWER charger is designed to recharge and maintain a deep cycle battery to the best of its capabilities in normal operating conditions. There however is the rare occurrence when a battery may be discharged well below its safe levels and require recharging, of which the ePOWER in normal charge mode needs greater than 3.5 volts DC to activate the Micro Processor to start the charger.
For a conventional 12 volt deep cycle battery to be discharged well below 9vdc can cause numerous issues while recharging, with the greatest risk of a cell collapsing or a thermal runaway event occuring. Its absolutely imperative as an owner of deep cycle batteries that you DONT let your batteries fall below 9volts. Discharging a battery past 9vdc will severely shorten the life of the battery, if not cause it to be irrecoverable if voltages reach as low as 1 or even 0VDC.
The ePOWER Charger has a function that allows you to safely rejuvenate the battery if no internal damage has occurred. By applying a constant voltage and a lower charge rate for a number of hours, the likelihood of battery damage while recharging is greatly reduced.
Should you ever have a battery fall to levels that the ePOWER will not support, simply do the following;
STEP 1: HOLD MENU button until battery type is Flashing.
STEP 2: PRESS SEL button until battery type PROGRAM is Flashing.
STEP 3: PRESS SET to set the Charger into PROGRAM (Power Supply Mode).
STEP 4: The Voltage will show 13.3V It doesn’t matter which one its is on, just PRESS SET to select and move on.
Step 5: The screen will show Amps, PRESS SEL to change it to 5A and PRESS SET to Select it.
Step 6: HOLD MENU button till you return to the main screen.
We recommend that the battery be maintained in a power supply stage for at least 12—24hours for the best possible recovery of the battery (but don’t leave the charger turned on overnight) This will let the battery slowly absorb the voltage and amps and help to keep any damage casued to the battery to a minimum. While in this re-charge phase, we do not recommend any loads to be operated until the battery is ready for the charger to be switched back to charging mode.
WARNING!
If your battery is showing any signs of bulging or overheating, shut down the system and get your battery checked by a professional.
Step 7: After your battery has had time to recover change your battery type settings back to suit your battery and continue charging as normal. This can be done by following the next to steps. (Step 8 to 11)
STEP 8: HOLD MENU button until battery type is Flashing.
STEP 9: PRESS SEL button until battery type that suits your batteries is Flashing.
STEP 10: PRESS SET to set the Charger into desired battery type
STEP 11: PRESS MENU to return to the main screen
CAUTION.
When you return the ePOWER charger back to normal 3 stage mode after a dead flat battery be sure to monitor the battery for any signs of heat build-up or excessive gassing. If the battery does not recover after the return to bulk phase has been completed please contact your local battery supplier for a more detailed battery test.
SUGGESTED TIP – To prevent low voltage conditions occurring, consider installing a low battery cut out in your system. This can be done with either the Enerdrive eLITE battery monitor and external latching relay, or a dedicated low voltage cut out. You mostly need to consider low voltage cutout protection on any circuit that has LED lights included as these will drain your batteries down to zero volts DC if left unattended.
