Need advice solar, lithium and power converter

[Lady and the Fishfinder]

Since you have Battle Born batteries, I would suggest you call them directly, they can let you know what is appropriate for your batteries and if your PD Converter is working appropriately.

Second, you might want to check your Converter to ensure that it is set to charge Lithium batteries and it has not defaulted to Lead Acid.

I also suggest the Victron Battery Monitor (with shunt), however I recommend getting the BlueTooth version, I rarely look at the monitor, I almost always connect to the BlueTooth to check on my system.

Thanks for the reply - I did call Battle Born, and they told me to call PD - said PD takes care of all their own warranty and tech support.
I can't see any setting or jumper wire to set for Lithium or LA. THE PD 9160AL seems to be lithium only.

But I do understand that the Victron battery shunt is a must to understand the state of charge.

Articles I've read show charging amps vs state of charge seem to indicate that the charging rate remains very near 14 up until about 90%, then drop off. Not at all like LA batts with bulk, absorb and float. Battle Born recommends 14.2-14.4 for Bulk stage, then 13.6 for absorb/float - just two stages.

[Lady and the Fishfinder]

Ok wow. So that’s a lot. First, get a battery shunt. Straight up get a Victron battery monitor. The 700 series with or without Bluetooth. You need to see what’s up with the batteries in real life not a dummy meter on the panel. Your ability to monitor those batteries really is imperative. I have both the Victron 700 and the batteries themselves have a screen that shows me their charge (I have Renogy). The inverter/charger is not great for telling me what is actually happening. Second you are seeing the bulk charge mode and that usually draws a lot until it gets to the second stage of the charger. I really prefer a better charger than what you chose. I have a built in inverter charger that’s 50 amps but i already know I should’ve gotten the 80 amp one. Lifepo4 batteries can take a lot of amps at once. They just absorb the charge at a rate that other batteries never would.
The batteries don’t charge at a high rate the entire time. They do a bulk charge and then go to absorb and then float. You can look it up on the battle born site.

These batteries are a learning curve in and of themselves

And yes it takes many hours to charge them. That isn’t going to change unless you get a higher amp charger. But 2 batts isn’t bad. That’s what I have a 200ah bank.

Thanks for your input. It's interesting that a lot of the hype about Li and Battle Born is about the fast charging. They recommend a charger capacity no more than about 50% of the Ah capacity of the battery. So for 2 100 Ah batteries, a 100 amp charger should be max. with a 50 amp charger you should be able to charge 200 Ah of capacity in 4 hours. At 60 amps, a little over 3 hours. And 100 amps, 2 hours. I realize that efficiency loss at the converter, lengths of cable, gauge, etc. all contribute to giving less than maximum performance, but solar it seems to be a LOT of losses or something else is going on. But gotta get the Victron shunt first........

[Lady and the Fishfinder]

Thanks for your input. It's interesting that a lot of the hype about Li and Battle Born is about the fast charging. They recommend a charger capacity no more than about 50% of the Ah capacity of the battery. So for 2 100 Ah batteries, a 100 amp charger should be max. with a 50 amp charger you should be able to charge 200 Ah of capacity in 4 hours. At 60 amps, a little over 3 hours. And 100 amps, 2 hours. I realize that efficiency loss at the converter, lengths of cable, gauge, etc. all contribute to giving less than maximum performance, but solar it seems to be a LOT of losses or something else is going on. But gotta get the Victron shunt first........

oops, take out the "solar" in the second to last sentence .......