Cycling a pwII charger

[yurtle]

Originally Posted by JohnnieB

However, I do caution anyone using this method to use a weekly timer rather than a daily one.

Thus my convoluted warning. A lot more of my timers are "daily" rather than "weekly".

[kgsc]

Thanks yurtle. And yes sprinkler times can be told to only come on once a week and longer for some models. 24 AC circuit to open relays and if you run it off of the pump control circuit it will stay hot until all zones complete.

Like he said, we can let this horse go to sleep now.

[yurtle]

Then all you need is a 24 volt AC relay to break the sense circuit. I'd think one amp would be plenty, but the more the better.

I'd install the relay inside somewhere, and run two wires out to your timer. If you wanna get fancy, you could install a plug and an outlet to make it more portable.

[yurtle]

And since you have a PowerWise, you can give it 16 - 20 hours weekly, as the charger will still automatically turn off when the batteries are happy (assuming your PW works properly).

If you aren't driving it at all, you can monitor the first couple of charge cycles and adjust the time accordingly. No point in feeding a charger 20 hours if it only needs 3. Give it an hour or two more than it needs and all will be fine. It ain't an energy hog once it turns off.

[kgsc]

If and when I get around to this I probably will put a molex plug of sorts that I can put a jumper on to use the charger as normal.

[yurtle]

Good point!

Once "high-jacked" It ain't normal anymore, kinda like me.

Thus the advantage to JohnnyB's mod.

[yurtle]

A toggle switch would also work. Just bypass the relay. SPST.