Battery Capacity Tester Circuit

The setup described above works for 48v max with a West Mountain CBA IV, West Mountain CBA Charge Controller, Grin Tech Satiator, and a Windows PC with at least two USB 2.0 ports.

We did find some quirks using the West Mountain CBA software:

• "cycle" count in West Mountain software counts each "charge" or "discharge" completed. So setting "4" cycles starting with a "charge" cycle will result in one cycle of charging, the discharge, then another charging cycle and one final discharge cycle.
• not obvious on first read: you MUST define the default charge profile as both Active and the Default profile. Then save the profile which restarts the Satiator charger. It will sit there in "Ready" state for at least 12 hours awaiting a load attached to it, in this case after load is switched to the charger using the CBA Charge Controller.

And a very interesting quirk in the Grin Tech Satiator charger:

• every 30-31 minutes the Grin Tech Satiator drops the current during constant current charge mode for about 1s. The current drops to levels that you may have set in the West Mountain CBA softare to define end of charge cycle
• Workaround: set the Satiator's end of charge current in the Active profile at a desired end of charge cycle level instead of using the CBA Charge Controller setting which may be falsely triggered. Satiator code knows NOT to check for end of cycle current during these brief charging interruptions

We will add more features and a System Overview diagram as we resume battery qualifications and testing.

I am trying to connect West Mountain CBA IV, West Mountain CBA Charge Controller, Grin Tech Satiator (24V) for charge-discharge testing of lead acid batteries. CBA controller needs feedback from Grin tech charger after completing full charge cycle. I don't know how to connect Grin to CBA.
thank you
kamavaram

So sorry we had not seen this post for so long!

The key to using a Grin Tech Satiator with the CBA Charge Controller is to set the CBA to ignore the periodic current interruption the Satiator does to check the state of the battery charging process. The CBA Charge Controller software uses the CBA to get feedback on the voltage and current at the connector terminals. The West Mountain Radio CBA Charge Controller which could use some enhancement is shown in the diagram and below that a photo of the SABA configuration we show at the LEVA Tech training.

We are not yet setup again for CBA testing due to COVID19 pandemic, but I have this on my list to document and post here and several other places. In time we will complete a video we started on how to setup the CBA Charge Controller in a Semi-Automated Battery Analyzer (SABA) configuration.

Best, Mark

Diagram from the West Mountain CBA Charge Controller manual:


Photo of my test setup: