NC25A Charge Controllers: Maximize Mechanical Power Storage

[jtyler05si]

So I am a mechanical engineering student and working on a project. The premise of this project is that there is a mechanical system that outputs anywhere from 300 to 1500 Watts of mechanical power and I want to convert that into electrical power and store it into powerpacks (deep cycle batteries made by a couple companies that have a charger and inverter in its assembly).

So from the mechanical system I want to have an electrical motor with safe maximum ratings that outputs a DC signal through a diode into a charge controller (cheap kind that just uses relays) that knocks the voltage down to ~14V that goes to the battery (which has its own charging system)

The charge controller I am looking at is an NC25A and it can handle up to 130V and 25 Amps. So that means depending on the electric motor I use, I might need multiple charge controllers.

From what little knowledge I have about electric motors is that if more current is being drawn from the motor then the mechanical side will be harder to turn...

So with that if multiple charge controllers are hooked in parallel they will be pulling too much current and if there is only 300W of mechanical power available, the motor won't turn...

That's one way I see it. I don't have enough knowledge about this stuff, but I wish that I could have a variable amount of mechanical power that is translated into electrical power and it charges an appropriate amount of batteries.

I know some controllers have an ability to divert excess voltage to another output and I can send that to another controller and so on. That will allow for the appropriate chaining of charging where one charges and the excess charges another (which can be expanded to multiple charging full time and then draining onto the last).

I know this is a huge wall of text and most of it is probably just rambling, so questions are welcome if anything is unclear. I have a lot more technical stuff written down and I tried to sum it up, but possibly failed.

 

[berkeman]

The premise of this project is that there is a mechanical system that outputs anywhere from 300 to 1500 Watts of mechanical power and I want to convert that into electrical power and store it into powerpacks (deep cycle batteries made by a couple companies that have a charger and inverter in its assembly).

What is the range of the output voltage? That is the key for any power conversion system you connect after the power generator stage...

So from the mechanical system I want to have an electrical motor with safe maximum ratings that outputs a DC signal through a diode into a charge controller (cheap kind that just uses relays) that knocks the voltage down to ~14V that goes to the battery (which has its own charging system)

Sorry, I don't undersand this part.

So with that if multiple charge controllers are hooked in parallel they will be pulling too much current and if there is only 300W of mechanical power available, the motor won't turn...

You need to be careful hooking multiple DC-DC converters in parallel. There can be stability issues between them...

I know some controllers have an ability to divert excess voltage to another output and I can send that to another controller and so on. That will allow for the appropriate chaining of charging where one charges and the excess charges another (which can be expanded to multiple charging full time and then draining onto the last).

Do you have some datasheets you can post about these charge controllers? Thanks.