Hi all,

Remember those first NL power packs?   At least 10 years old now.

With current bouts of loadshedding and me still working on a home solar solution, I need to power the living room “UPS”.  My UPS these days is a standalone inverter (375w) and standalone charger both connected to the battery. 

I was thinking that since my old NL power pack has an old battery I could probably have it do service in the living room as well working with my standalone inverter and charger.

Regarding the two Anderson plugs on that NL box, my understanding / recollection and recent research about these ports is as follows:

The red Anderson plug: 

·        While camping and overlanding, this use to be connected to the vehicle alternator while driving. 

·        This is an input only i.e. input to the battery inside the NL box.

·        This plug has some electronics / regulator between it and the battery used for charging.

 

They grey Anderson plug:

·        Meant for higher outputs while camping which never/rarely used.

·        This is an input or an output.

·        Connected directly to the battery i.e. no regulator, charger or other circuit involved.

 

Now if you wish to charge the battery inside the NL box without sliding open the box you have the following two options in my mind:

·        Intelligent charger plugged into a wall socket and going into the grey Anderson plug – this will allow the charger to talk directly to the battery as if it was clamped on.

·        Or, if you want to use the red plug instead (which opens the grey Anderson for an output), you cannot use the wall charger as this will confuse or interfere with the circuits behind the red Anderson plug.  What might work is one of those AC>DC power supplies people use with CCTV systems etc. so that the electronic circuits inside the NL basically see it as an incoming voltage from an alternator.  Most of those power supplies are 12v or 24v which I guess will be too low and too high.  ACDC Express does have a 15V 10A one.  That’s close to a car alternator right?  And this would allow the NL to charge the battery as if driving.

 

Anyone else done something similar?

12 minutes ago, Christoff83 said:

What might work is one of those AC>DC power supplies people use with CCTV systems etc. so that the electronic circuits inside the NL basically see it as an incoming voltage from an alternator.

They usually have a trim-potentiometer, right next to the connection strip so you can adjust output to be 13.8V or 14.4V, for the 12V version...

12 minutes ago, Kalahari Meerkat said:

They usually have a trim-potentiometer, right next to the connection strip so you can adjust output to be 13.8V or 14.4V, for the 12V version...

Thanks....   I saw that the other day while in an ACDC express  - like a little orange screw.   I wanted to buy a 12v one specifically for this purpose but the sales guy on the floor told me that according to him, all those adjustments have been disabled before the devices are put on the shelves.  I was really confused by that statement but he assured me he had a conversation with their technical crew at ACDC about this very topic only a few days before.

Maybe I'll just go get a 12V version and test it out.

Thanks a mil