Battery Charger

Probably the best charger for the money, i bought 1 of these 10 years ago and installed it on my boat, where its been over worked and abused, by not supplying it with the required amps it needs to operate, and yet its preformed flawlessly, until now,..its stopped working, and i felt it was a great deal.so i just bought another one to replace the old one, works great

works well as described Customer service is awesome and helpful

Currently these are mislabeled and you will not get an iq4, I have ordered two of them and they had a new label put over the old label saying it is an iq4 when it isnt

The old one lasted 15 plus years. Had to do a direct replacement with that service history

Bought this to replace a DLS-75/IRQ3. The old unit worked fine with my generatorgenerator and never gave me a lick of trouble. New unit pulls more power for thesame charging current.Called tech support: turns out the new DLS-75 has a switching power supply!The old DLS-75/IRQ3 had a linear power supply.Moreover, the IRQ4 charge controller is much more complex than the IRQ3, with severalnew states: FAULT, MAINTENANCE (EQ, desulfation). This would be fine, except that itis poorly documented. Also, the charge voltage is very aggressive: up to 14.8 VDC.According to battery manufacturers and the "Battery University" website, that willreduced the life of traditional flooded-cell, lead-antimony plate batteries.When I asked what types of lead-acid battery it is designed to charge, the answer was"all of them". But there is no way to tell the unit what type of battery,. Assome of you out there will know, they all have different charging requirements.I'm charging five deep-cycle marine batteries, so I need to maximize battery life.Not surprisingly, the IRQ4 controller does not follow the DIN 41773 "IUoU" standardfor lead-acid battery charging. The unit only senses charge voltage, not charge current.It does however have a maximum current that it will not exceed (which I measure at72.2 A using a not very accurate Hall Effect ammeter).Sometimes I see the voltage rise from 14.2 to 14.8 with no change in current.I cannot explain that and neither could the tech.The old IQ3 controller was predictable--this one tries to do too much and thereforegets confused. It might work better if the batteries had no load during charging.But in my application (off-grid), that's not always feasible--I may be running a lighta light off the inverter and maybe a 12VDC TV set. I am getting by with it, but it'sa constant worry and is almost certainly shortening the life of my battery bank.The IQ4 controller stores its state even when the AC power is off, as long as the batteriesare connected. If it gets into the FAULT state, it has to be disconnected from the AC andfrom the batteries to clear it.This unit was apparently old stock and still had the single color green LED indicator.This flashes patterns to identify the mode it is in: 0.5 Hz flash, "slow" flash, "irregularflash". When it first powers up, it flashes once for each volte: twelve flashes means 12 Volts.Very, very confusing. Newer units have a three-color LED, but still to don't really tell youwhat the unit is doing.IOTA Engineering has been acquired by Acuity Brands. IOTA tech support no longer hasaccess to engineering. I tried to find out the maximum AC input Watts (rms). Theycouldn't tell me. So I asked for the power factor--they couldn't tell me but said itwas "not very good". Later they said it was "less than 0.6". I asked about the state transition table for the unit. They didn't have that. I drew oneup based on the (vague) documentation. They wouldn't confirm or deny it.The tech (who is a really nice guy and doing the best he can) told me that he only knowswhat's in the documentation (user's manual and sales brochures), and has no one he canask questions. He said the engineers from the old IOTA Engineering have retired.The old DLS-75/IQ3 was a great unit. The new DLS-75/IQ4 may work wellin some applications, but I cannot recommend it for use with a generator.Switching-type power supplies without power factor correction are inappropriatefor high-power applications. IOTA used to offer an "X" submodel of the DLS thathad correction, but it's been discontinued.Also, battery chargers should specify what kinds of battery they can and can't charge:flooded cell Pb-Sb, Pb-Ca-Sb; Absorbent Glass Mat; Valve-Regulated Lead-Acid; etc.And the characteristics and behavior of the charger must be completely documentedso that it can be integrated with other equipment: batteries, solar chargers, generators.I am very disappointed. Another great company turned into a "brand".

Nice charger at a good price. Good clean DC power supply and the smart charge 4 stage piece is a nice addition. My only gripe is that when the unit is being used with enough current draw to require the cooling fan to come on, the fan is not silent. Not a problem for most people, but in the application I am using it in, I was hoping for silent operation. That's the ONLY reason it is a 4 star and not a 5 star.

No complaints .

When the sun doesn't shine and the solar panels don't keep the deep cycle batteries charged, the IOTA 75 amp charger does a superb job when I run the generator.