Does anyone know of a nice power supply that doesn't cost an arm and a leg? I need a power supply according to my Schultze's instuctions that "can supply 34-45 amps continuous and is well regulated, and has has a very high output capacitance (>5000uF/16V), very low ripple and is insensitive to the frequency of the chargers' internal switching voltage converter"


Whatever that all mean

You only need a 45A PSU if you're going to be using both outputs on large packs at the same time. I have a 25A PSU which works fine with the isl8. It was bought in the UK and has a 'Watson' badge on it. The only problem I have is that the PSU sees the isl8 as a short circuit when first connected and turns itself off. I ovecome this by connecting with a 1ohm resistor in series and then shorting out the resistor as soon as connected. A bit of a chore, but it works.

The way I got around this is to use a lead-acid battery and a small wall charger for the lead-acid battery. And the cool part is if you are using more than 15 cells on the first output, the energy you get from discharging them actually chargers your lead-acid battery instead of dissipating it entirely as heat! Just remember to get a deep-discharge type so that it can take the deep discharging-charging cycles. Also you don't have to worry about voltage spikes damaging your charger. But in no event should you have the both chargers hooked up to the lead acid battery. It is also stated in the manual to not use the lead acid battery as a 'float' when you are using it to power your charger.

I have a deep cycle marine battery on a Battery Tender for maintaining it's charge, but I want a power supply that enables my ISL-8 to charge on all three outputs continuously, a 16 -20 cell pack on output 1 and 2 and the 3rd output for charging reciever batterys.

If I were using the charger like that I would like to err on the side of more amps.

I don't think you're going to get a power supply like that without paying some serious money, the 40A one Schulze recommend is 205 Euros incl. tax ($250 US)!

I only run my ISL 8 from a big leisure battery (even at home), which I recharge immediately after each session.

Bill,

Where did you find the power supply recommended by Schultze?

Byron

Schulze PSU

Byron,
My advice is to look around on Ebay. I got a great deal on an excellent power supply there. Below is the link to the one I purchased. It should work fine for you as I have used it to simultaneously charge batteries using 5 separate chargers.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eB...tem=2441232805

Jerry