So i've seen several differing opinions on this was jw what the correct thing to do is now days when dealing with 12v xs power batteries such as the d5100R

and new-er xp series batteries...

What are you asking? Is your car charging at 14.9 or something?

I would love to run my amplifiers at 14.4 volts, but I do not want to put the rest of my car through that punishment and have to change up my alternator configuration. Atleast not at this time. IF I can get that Dakota Digital dash pod I've been drooling over lately, it might be an option to run 2 8 volt and 2 6 volt batteries.

But for now, I will just stick to 4 walmart batteries in the trunk.

Edited May 19, 201411 yr by Randal Johnson

I would keep it to 14.5 or so in a daily driver, And adjust it up to 15.0 for comps. 

I have an external voltage regulator and can set it to charge at w.e. ide like (which would be as high as safely possible for daily).

I charge right at 14.8-15.0 without issue. Takes about 25-30 miles before I get down to 14.8 and by then I'm at work. I wouldn't turn it up and leave it at 15v nonstop by any means though. Charging higher causes sulfation at a much higher rate from all of the information that manufacturers provide. 

Ok then I think I will set it at 14.9

for long life, IIRC, XS recommends 14.6-14.8 for longer life. But can handle up to 15.2 or 15.3 for comp day, again, IIRC.

Thanks for your input Sencheezy, how long on average would you say would it be safe to expose your batteries to 15.2-15.3 volts on comp day?

Thanks for your input Sencheezy, how long on average would you say would it be safe to expose your batteries to 15.2-15.3 volts on comp day?

Its kinda hard to give you an amount of time. But i can almost assure you that you wont damage your batteries if you charge them a half volt above recommended charging levels for just a day.

 

just an opinion though.

I would only charge them at that level for that burp. 

Truth is only reason for higher voltage is for more wattage from your amplifier. However, if you're alternator isNOT capable of producing all the amperage required to take the slack of the amplifier the fallback will be battery voltage. If you have a bank of 10 batts and a single 240 amp alternator with a dc9k then you'll only be getting your alt voltage up to like 3k of the amp before it starts pulling your voltage down to battery surface charge then dips in to the battery bank anyways on 12 volt systems. This is why major competitors are now running ultra caps as they can take the current demands of these huge ass amps that demand 1000+ amps for 3 second bursts or more. It also takes like 8 banks of caps to even equal the weight of a single group 31 battery so you can see that the tradeoff is huge cause 8 banks of caps can hold amperage bursts far greater than any 12 volt battery can, it just can't sustain it for too long.

Edited June 24, 201411 yr by nadcicle

Sencheezy, did xs change their recommendation recently?

They've always said in the past 14.4v was highest for longest life and not suggested to go over 14.7v and never over 14.9v for any extended time.

This is charging though. Alts don't charge in this context so some people may get manuf. Recommendations confused with regulators.

Sencheezy, did xs change their recommendation recently?

They've always said in the past 14.4v was highest for longest life and not suggested to go over 14.7v and never over 14.9v for any extended time.

This is charging though. Alts don't charge in this context so some people may get manuf. Recommendations confused with regulators.

 

Old thread. 

http://www.4xspower.com/Dseries-Instructions.pdf

In my experience charging at 14.9 made no difference than charging at 14.4.

On a huge scale it's like 2 tenths on a meter so if you're number chasing sure, but i mean unless it's for a world record then it's really not worth it.

On a huge scale it's like 2 tenths on a meter so if you're number chasing sure, but i mean unless it's for a world record then it's really not worth it.

Realistically it's even less than that before efficiency losses, power compression, and the fact that a large burp will quickly drop the voltage down to battery resting voltage. If you're pulling nearly 500 amps at around 65% efficiency you're looking at less than 200 Watt difference, but the caviot is you'd have to be able to keep the consistent voltage for it to even matter.