Most of the time when we think of a battery, we think of the batteries that we use for personal gadgets. However, they form only a small part of what batteries are used for. Batteries are also used in other places as backup to the regular power supply. Here many batteries are connected together to form a battery bank.
What I previously said about battery chargers mostly applied to single batteries. In battery banks, the basic idea remains the same, but the larger scale creates other issues. For example, battery chargers for battery banks also provide DC current, but factors like heat and overcharging become very important because of the magnitude.
As discussed in a previous post, battery charger capacity is dependent on battery capacity or C-rate. If you have a battery bank of, say, 250Ah, theoretically you need a charger of 250A to charge your battery in an hour. But such a huge current would literally melt your battery after a couple of cycles because of the heat generated.
Ideally, you should have a charger that has a rate of C/5. That means, for our example, a 50A charger. Also remember that your battery capacity will decrease with time. So it’s better to go below the ideal battery charger size rather than overshoot it.
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