Re: (ET) Recommendations for modern replacements for the electronics?

["David Roden" <etpost drmm net>]

The Manzanita PFC chargers are popular with EV hobbyists because they 
excel 
at the amount of output power they can produce per dollar invested.  They 
can really charge your battery in a hurry!  That's good for a road EV that 
you drive every day, but not so important for a tractor you use once a 
week.

For the sake of power per dollar, you give up sophisticated charge control 
(their charge control is better than the GE's, but is still very 
rudimentary) and isolation (meaning that one side of your battery is 
physically connected to the power line, which is less safe than a 
transformer-based charger).  

They also are not UL or CSA approved and haven't been put through the 
electrical stress tests that those approvals require.  Basically they're 
equivalent to a homemade charger in that regard.  As far as I know, 
they're 
not used in any commercial EV, and won't be, until they get regulatory 
approval.  That doesn't seem to be a priority for their manufacturer; he 
is 
selling about as many as he can make to EV hobbyists, who usually don't 
worry very much about legal liability.

If you want a sophisticated microprocessor controlled charger, isolated, 
and 
UL approved, you might try Zivan or Delta-Q.  Or just get a good used 36 
volt golf car charger.


David Roden - Akron, Ohio, USA

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = 
Note: mail sent to the "etpost" address will not reach me.  To send 
me a private message, please use the address shown at the bottom
of this page : http://www.evdl.org/help/
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =