high rate charging on generator

Imurphy wrote:

MEXICOWANDERER wrote:
Telecomm companies establish parameters for maintenance based on OEM guidelines. OEM is aware that their client wishes the very highest degree of performance reliability. So a operating lifetime max hours is agreed upon. Max hours of guaranteed reliability. Zero non performers. The batteries have a specified level of max discharge at which Telecomm shuts down transmission and the batteries go dormant. The percentage of charge remaining is unknown to me. We allow many plants to go as dead as they want. And rely on equipment's power supplies to shut down or brown out. Thou some sites we do terminate service for the sake of the batteries.

Technicians operate by holy writ in the form of rote. They follow maintenance, troubleshooting and testing exactly and precisely according to company doctrine. It is all well documented then entered into a computer database for reference, study and analysis. Job one is the repeater must not fail. The largest piece of this information is trending. With out an accurate history of how the battery lives, one may declare it deceased early. Or worse off, wait to long to bury it.

Transcribing telecomm writ to a usable form for RVers can be deceptive. What worked excellently for telecomm may not be in the best interest of somone whose use of the used batteries may be totally different. Telecomm is after 100.0% reliabilty at the expense of trade-offs. Are you aware of the tradeoffs?Most telcom plants trade cycle's for depth or discharge. As with any battery the less you use it, the longer you can use it. Where in telcom we generally hit it hard, and there for dont get as many cycles out of them.

Understand this point. After an outage, telecomm batteries have forever and a day to recharge. Do you? Charge amperage ceilings are based on acheiving ultra maximum longevity. This is a moot point if telecomm batteries spend a majority of their golden years connected to shore power with incidental short interruptions for boondocking. In that scenario following Telecomm rote is the wisest choice as it most closely mimics what the batteries were designed for.Every battery mfg. has recommendations on how to use their battery. No one says you have to. But pumping to much current into a plant is a sure way to ruin it. And Telcom has restrictions on recharge. We do NOT have forever and a day to recover a plant. We have FCC regulations that state our systems have to maintain between 8 and 24hrs of backup at any given time. We recharge our plants as fast as we can. Its not uncommon to have an outage just hours after a previous one. This is the worse case. We also have to have the equipment to properly supply power to the load, and be able to charge the batteries ASAP. Even a back up generator or a fire alarm panel has regulations on max recharge time.

When things shift to off-grid rote gets chucked out the window. Calculated charge maximum absorbsion voltage is not the same animal. Neither is maximum absorbsion voltage. Only float voltage remains thec same.Many battery MFG. understand the different use of their batteries. In the case of these UPS12-490's they call for a float of 13.65 ± 0.15 VDC average per 12V unit. While recognizing they may be used in a cycle service thus also state 14.40 to 14.80 VDC average per 12V unit for such use. Upping the voltage while still maintaining the recommended amperage increases the wattage of absorbed power.

If you stick like glue to telecomm rote prepare to rum your generator a lot longer. You are mimicking unlimited time value recharging via your generator. Your fuel and your time.

When I generator recharge 3300 amp hours of 24 volt battery it is absolutely different from charging using CFE shore power. One is 500+ amperes. The other is 120 amperes (the 4024 Trace). Coursing 120'amperes through a 1650 amp hour battery / 2 banks is a gentle recharge. Life with public power available is absolutely unlike recharging via a generator. The issue is time. The issue is money. Lots and lots of money. To do an in-frame on the Kubota is around five thousand dollars. Add that to $3.35 fuel, filyets, lube oil and labor and it makes shore power recharging calculations totally, completely and absolutely irrelevant. To the point of becoming absurd. Cost of kWh hr transcribed to usable battery kWh includes the ACTUAL cost of fuel plus generator wear and tear. I an not a telecomm company and nothing I manage even remotely can serve as a model for both economics nor management.

Trust me not much we do is a model of economics either. In many cases with remote prime power sites. We would rather buy a new generator ever 2-3 years and burn thousands of gallons of fuel. Than have to purchase a new battery plant every fuel years. Its it alot cheaper to fuel and replace a generator than replace a battery plant.

One of the things I love about Telco batteries is they are always available. They take a 48v string and toss it out. We get to run to the pile and pick out the best of whats left to make out 12 or 24v systems. I know I have a huge pile of batteries at home that were tossed aside. I currently have 8 180ah AGM batteries I am "reviving" from the telco world. they were taken out of service and left on a pallet for 2 years with out a charge. I have been able to bring them back to life quite well. And they currently follow their historical trending withing 80% of rated capacity. These cells were deemed to have a 7yr life span. They spent 9 years in service. 2 on a pallet and are about to be connected to an outback GS series radian, where I expect another hand full of years out of them in UPS mode.

The biggest problem with most telco batteries is the amount of calcium they have. during discharge the plates swell. Over time this causes plates to short and the battery than no longer works.

I would not hesitate to use old telco batteries. But I certainly would not buy them new for this use. For the money there are batteries that will serve the offgrid world better. But for cheap/free batteries, why not finish them off.

When you get two guys from different ends of the battery business, and telecom business, in the same post, you should find a moderator that can make this a sticky for Telecom batteries. I think you can take this post above to the bank.

I will be stunned if I don't get 7 years or more out of my Deka Telecom battery, knowing how I care and use it, thick plates and acid rich concentrate at 1.300 SG.