poss battery problem

[solarman216]

Just had power failure here, grabbed torch went to battery shed, inverter saying low battery voltage, odd as the solar charger connected direct to battery shows 25.2 volts, played with it for a few mins but every time I applied load = same thing, so reason it must be a bad cell connection, so hastily hooked up new battery set (all half ton of it) and disconnected old, all is good again, so another job to do tomorrow, but it might wait till the week end as got a lot on at the mo, Rick

 

[jims-terrano]

At least you have a set to get you back and running again. Must feel good not having a lecky bill coming in. Any chance of some pics of your setup, would love to come and say hi but sadly time and never getting down your neck of the woods put pay to that.

Hope you get it sorted.

 

[solarman216]

Must feel good not having a lecky bill coming in. Any chance of some pics of your setup, would love to come and say hi but sadly time and never getting down your neck of the woods put pay to that.

New Battery hooked up last night, has about 1000 Ah capacity of which we can use up to 800 but that would take it to its limit of discharge so we do not do that about 600 is good

 

[solarman216]

Old battery, ten years old now, 800 Ah when new of which we could have 520 but rarely discharged that low, still gives around 340 ah now but we mostly only go to around 250

 

[solarman216]

looks like the suspect connection

 

[solarman216]

Solar panels, on a reasonably bright day they can supply all we need except for the washing machine/tumble dryer

 

[solarman216]

This is how we keep an eye on what we use, state of discharge etc, the r in the display is erroneous it should read 25.9 and this is after we used 57 A hours over night

 

[solarman216]

This is our primary charging motor 2 cyl Lister with a 12v alternator for the Fridge battery and the big 24v alternator for the main battery I have to keep the revs down or it will charge at too high a rate 150a I keep it at around 80a and a charge controller sorts the rest

 

[solarman216]

Charge control, this knows when to do an equalizing charge as well as being a four stage charge control

 

[solarman216]

And lastly the battery that only powers the fridge, just shows what a fridge uses,

 

[macabethiel]

Off Grid

Nice looking set up you have.

 

[Mobieus_uk]

what about the power delivery side, I'm guessing your running a invertor of some sorts

 

[jims-terrano]

Looks like a really interesting setup, wish we had something like that. We have some panels on the roof which have brought the bills down and given us a small income.

 

[solarman216]

what about the power delivery side, I'm guessing your running a invertor of some sorts

Yes correct a Victron inverter/charger, when it works it is good but this is the 3rd one in ten years, this one has lasted the longest albeit the charger packed up about 3 years ago, I guess maybe that it is now just an inverter some of the strain has bee relieved, anyhow I would not recommend them, I have just purchased one from Sterling Power Products as a back up cos this one cannot last forever, the fridge is a Shoreline with the Danfoss 12/24v dc compressor, we do also run a small A rated chest freezer on the 240v system which has proven not to pull much power, Rick

 

[AlexD333]

I've seen this set up, along with some more clever gizmos very clever set up indeed quite jeleous actually :naughty

 

[solarman216]

Finally got round to sorting the Battery issue, worse than a bad connection an internally soldered lug came off, could have blown the cell sky high as it would have produced sparks inside the cell

 

[solarman216]

Nicely lead welded back on, oxy propane with a small hot flame so as not to melt the whole thing, you can see the difference between full traction plates and start battery ones, here the positive plates are nearly 9mm thick, Rick

 

[solarman216]

OH and forgot to mention this battery is 10 years old regularly discharged to 50% of capacity, and recharged a few hours later, its design life is 15 years, Rick