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Home / Charge Controllers / AC Battery Chargers / IOTA Engineering DLS-27-25 25A, 24V Converter/Charger / Reviews / Best. Charger. Ever.
JERRY PASKER

IOTA Engineering DLS-27-25 25A, 24V Converter/Charger

Written December 17, 2007

Best. Charger. Ever.

I use several of these chargers to power 24 volt wireless broadband DC battery systems. They keep the batteries floated at the proper voltage, and with the IQ4 controller the battery bank gets a two hour boost charge once per week. I've purchased quite a few of these units, and they've all exceeded my expectations. Things that I like about the charger:

1)It's more of a high quality, high output power supply, that just happens to protect itself from the demands of being a battery charger.

2)Less expensive than "telco" battery chargers. By a margin of about 50%. With the money you save, you can buy an extra and keep a spare on hand.

3)Cooling fan. Runs when it needs to, faster when it's hotter, slower when it's cooler, and off most of the time (saves fan wear). Most of the time, the large heat sinks mean that the fan doesn't have to run.

4)Efficiency. The Iotas are efficient, and that equals less heat inside enclosures. I've used other power supplies, and these by and far seem to operate with the least amount of heat.

5)The IQ charge controller. After a power failure, the Iota runs at a higher boost voltage. This basically makes the batteries (AGM, in my setups) finish their bulk charge to 90% within two hours, and minimizes generator run time during prolonged outage events. This allows one generator to serve several tower sites. Less generator run time is always welcome. After current drops for a period of time, it switches to float mode, and maintains less than +/- .1 volt voltage tolerance at the terminals.

6)Wide tolerance to input voltage and frequency. At one tower site, the input voltage regularly ranges from 127 volts down to 97 volts -sometimes briefly sagging lower- and has a lot of harmonic distortion. Originally, an APC uninterruptible power supply was used to try and "clean up" the voltage for a "lesser" 24 volt power supply/battery charger for some communications gear, but the gear still was plagued by outages from undercharged batteries. After removing the APC as an "AC line filter" and replacing the OEM power supply with the Iota connected directly to the poor quality AC mains, there have been no problems. The Iota maintains 27.2 volts output all the time. (except during the weekly equalization boost, and during mains outage) And I have years of data collected from remote voltage sensors to prove it. In the event of massively low input voltage, such as when running on a very undersized generator, the Iota just folds back its output current without harm to itself, and with no output ripple.

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