AGM Troubles Update
Last Fall, was asking about my AGMs crashing after seeming to be working ok up till then. Now I just found a reference to this that explains it. First link is the previous thread on this, then the l...
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That link above also says
" If plates are damaged, sulfated or partially gone from long use, the battery may give the appearance of being fully charged, but in reality acts like a battery of a much smaller size. This same thing can occur in AGM cells if they are overcharged and gaps or bubbles occur. What is left of the plates may be fully functional, but with only 20% of the plates left. Batteries usually go bad for other reasons before reaching this point, but it is something to be aware of if your batteries seem to test okay but lack capacity and go dead very quickly under load."
That's what my AGMs are like, but with more than half of original capacity. Hard to measure exactly with my tests at the 20 hr rate over time. About 60% it seems.
What I don't know is how I damaged them and if they will stay the way they are for a while so I can still use them as a 270AH bank instead of rated 450AH. Plan A is to use them and see what happens. So far so good on that. Plan B is get two more GC15s (230AH) and toss the AGMs, for a four- battery set of Wet 6s at 460AH.
Solar helps by keeping the voltage up and hides the poor state of the batteries. Only camp on sunny days should work! :)
" If plates are damaged, sulfated or partially gone from long use, the battery may give the appearance of being fully charged, but in reality acts like a battery of a much smaller size. This same thing can occur in AGM cells if they are overcharged and gaps or bubbles occur. What is left of the plates may be fully functional, but with only 20% of the plates left. Batteries usually go bad for other reasons before reaching this point, but it is something to be aware of if your batteries seem to test okay but lack capacity and go dead very quickly under load."
That's what my AGMs are like, but with more than half of original capacity. Hard to measure exactly with my tests at the 20 hr rate over time. About 60% it seems.
What I don't know is how I damaged them and if they will stay the way they are for a while so I can still use them as a 270AH bank instead of rated 450AH. Plan A is to use them and see what happens. So far so good on that. Plan B is get two more GC15s (230AH) and toss the AGMs, for a four- battery set of Wet 6s at 460AH.
Solar helps by keeping the voltage up and hides the poor state of the batteries. Only camp on sunny days should work! :)
