12v Golf Cart Battery Question
Sorry, don't have enough internet access at the moment to do a proper search, so I thought I'd ask here :) Talking with a local guy today who seems to know his stuff. He gave me a tip that the loc...
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So if 12.5v is 75% (whatever) then they are down 75AH from full at 300AH if perfect for rating. Should take a couple hours at 20amps charge and taper for a while?
Had them on solar charge (20a? max) with controller for four hours so far, from lunch-time, battery voltage rose fairly quickly to 14 then got bogged down at 14.3ish but still slowly rising by suppertime.
I don't have any ammeter on them during this charge up. Later on, I will try to get the Trimetric in there and get some proper info.
Hydrometer now at 1.275ish BUT unfortunately pulling up black stuff. Oops. Looks like I paid what they are worth? Anyway that is no worse than my Exide 6s right now, and they still do the job at rated AH. So we will keep going and prove these out. I suspect they are still useful someway or another, but we will just have to see.
EDIT two hours and a bit later, the controller has dropped to Float (it does two hours of Absorption at 14.6v. so now voltage is about 13.7 and all cells at near 1.275 with a lot of that black stuff cleared up (back to the bottom) but not all yet.
Went panel direct to "equalize", it hit 15v for a minute then dropped --clouds forming to the west covering the sun--drat. Have to wait till tomorrow to make more progress. Things aren't looking THAT bad so far. ( I am thinking shallow cycles with solar and not that many, maybe for inverter only) I have some hopes, but not counting my chickens yet!
EDIT #2--Sunset, declared the two 12s full at 1.275ish and rigged things so they are powering the RV except for the big inverter (not on line now), instead of the four 6s. Reset the Trimetric to zero AH. Solar disconnected.
Next event is to compare when the voltage of the two 12s gets down to 12.1v with the AH used, and take an SG. That should give some idea what their actual capacity is. (Next way is to recharge them and see how many AH they will take in before amps in drops to zero--but need a sunny day for that)
Had them on solar charge (20a? max) with controller for four hours so far, from lunch-time, battery voltage rose fairly quickly to 14 then got bogged down at 14.3ish but still slowly rising by suppertime.
I don't have any ammeter on them during this charge up. Later on, I will try to get the Trimetric in there and get some proper info.
Hydrometer now at 1.275ish BUT unfortunately pulling up black stuff. Oops. Looks like I paid what they are worth? Anyway that is no worse than my Exide 6s right now, and they still do the job at rated AH. So we will keep going and prove these out. I suspect they are still useful someway or another, but we will just have to see.
EDIT two hours and a bit later, the controller has dropped to Float (it does two hours of Absorption at 14.6v. so now voltage is about 13.7 and all cells at near 1.275 with a lot of that black stuff cleared up (back to the bottom) but not all yet.
Went panel direct to "equalize", it hit 15v for a minute then dropped --clouds forming to the west covering the sun--drat. Have to wait till tomorrow to make more progress. Things aren't looking THAT bad so far. ( I am thinking shallow cycles with solar and not that many, maybe for inverter only) I have some hopes, but not counting my chickens yet!
EDIT #2--Sunset, declared the two 12s full at 1.275ish and rigged things so they are powering the RV except for the big inverter (not on line now), instead of the four 6s. Reset the Trimetric to zero AH. Solar disconnected.
Next event is to compare when the voltage of the two 12s gets down to 12.1v with the AH used, and take an SG. That should give some idea what their actual capacity is. (Next way is to recharge them and see how many AH they will take in before amps in drops to zero--but need a sunny day for that)
