The PFC-50 Charger
PFC-50
(Click for higher resolution image)
Photo showing difference in size relative to the PFC-20
(Click for higher resolution image)
Extremely versatile battery charger.
This charger is designed to charge any battery pack from 12 volts to 360 volts nominal (14.4 to 450
peak.) It is power factor corrected and designed to either put out 50 amps (if the battery voltage is lower than
the input voltage) or draw 50 amps from the line (if the line voltage is lower than the battery voltage.)
The buck enhancement option allows over 75 amps out. See chart at bottom of this page.
The charger will operate from any voltage from 60 to 240 volts AC at either 40
to 80 Hz. The charger has a throttle knob to allow the user to turn the current down when using shared or undersized
circuits. This charger is designed to operate at full capacity from a 50 Amp circuit.
The chart that shows the amps delivered by a beta test unit using the two most common line voltages is (not yet
available). A unit with buck enhancement is shown below.
Efficiency is 85 to 95% depending on input and output voltage.
Power factor is better than .995 at full power into 400 volts. Power factor degrades at lower throttle setting
because the input filter capacitor current causes a phase shift on the input. See chart below..
Safety circuits:
The charger is protected from reverse polarity installation by an internal fuse.
Over temperature conditions cause the current to ramp back to prevent the internal temperature from going over 160F (more air makes more power.)
The charger is programmed to be a constant current source and will survive a short circuit indefinately.
There is a programmable timer to shut off the charger after a user selectable period.
The charger is BatReg aware (turns down or off if a BatReg gets hot.)
This charger is non-isolated. The negative terminal of the battery is connected to the negative terminal of a rectifier
bridge with the AC terminals connected to the incoming line through a 50 amp breaker.
Installation and Setup Instructions
The following link is the sheet of paper that is included with chargers:
http://www.manzanitamicro.com/installpfc20revC no photos.doc
The charger weighs 42 pounds including power cables.
Note: The following test was done with the first buck enhanced PFC-50 and still had the 80 amp fuse from a standard model installed. The buck enhanced models now have a 100 amp fuse and may produce over 80 amps at low voltage.
The power factor of the PFC50 drops with the throttle setting as shown on the chart shown below. Only the bottom half of the data is shown. The charger can draw over 6 kW with 130 volts on the input terminals. The charger will deliver over 10000 watts from a 50 amp 240 VAC feed. Power factor is better than .99 at throttle settings over 3 kW. This means that if you are operating from a small power supply (like a 1 kW genset) then you will deliver more power with a PFC-20 or PFC-30 which have a better power factor below 1 kW.
Note that this chart shows power from 0 to 4000 watts. The charger will deliver over 10000 watts from a 50 amp 240 VAC feed.
This page maintained by Joe Smalley.
This page last updated on 3 March 2006
