My Screwy 31
First off let me say I am not stressing over this. It's just a battery, it is only money, it is meeting my overnight needs, but it is displaying strange behavior, and I am curious as to why. So th...
Forum Discussion
We've had dayime temps in the 3 digit range and I've lowered the voltages to 14.2absv and 14.6F. but will raise them when it drops the ~30 degrees back to normal.
Warmer at night too. Battery is 'performing' well. Holding higher voltages and rebounding a bit quicker when loads cycle off/ are removed. I know a lot of this is temperature, but last Sunday night it had not gotten warm yet, and the battery was holding lots of voltage for longer than I am used to seeing. Eyebrows were raised. Sunday and every night since.
Water levels have noticeably dropped at last check too(Sunday)
If I am returning the SG to baseline once a week, how important is an every day baseline SG achievement? These days I could do 15.9v for a few hours each day, but why?
The charge controller is basically choosing float after one of two conditions are met, 2.5 hours at ABSV or if the current required to hold ABSV drops below 0.8 amps, where I have it set right now.
The Compressor fridge cycling off appears to have been playing havoc with that second part, since 2007.
I guess I could just flip all loads to the other battery while it goes through these 2 steps after bulk, then flip it back after, but that wastes a bunch of solar juice in the most productive part of the day. But I have an excess during ASBV and FV anyway. Also this screws up my battery monitor and requires more resetting/rezeroing, as it cannot know what current is going to which battery as things are currently wired.
It would also put a very shallow daily cycle on the AGM and I have no Idea how that battery will respond to that, especially since it would be too easy to forget and cycle it till sundown or later.
So, how important is it? A week of cycles at the former setpoints, puts me at 1.250 after a "full charge" on the 7th day. At that point, 45 minutes at 15.9v puts met a 1.280, and a seeming reset point.
Perhaps I can reduce the number of minutes required to reach 1.280 on that 7th day, or reduce the minimum SG to 1.265 at 7 days by higher absv and float/finish, but at what point am I eroding the positive plate more than just maintaining 14.7 and 15.3 expecting to have to perform a weekly Eq.
How unrealistic is it to want to achieve a max baseline SG after every cycle. Should that be the goal? Max SG every discharge/charge cycle?
Warmer at night too. Battery is 'performing' well. Holding higher voltages and rebounding a bit quicker when loads cycle off/ are removed. I know a lot of this is temperature, but last Sunday night it had not gotten warm yet, and the battery was holding lots of voltage for longer than I am used to seeing. Eyebrows were raised. Sunday and every night since.
Water levels have noticeably dropped at last check too(Sunday)
If I am returning the SG to baseline once a week, how important is an every day baseline SG achievement? These days I could do 15.9v for a few hours each day, but why?
The charge controller is basically choosing float after one of two conditions are met, 2.5 hours at ABSV or if the current required to hold ABSV drops below 0.8 amps, where I have it set right now.
The Compressor fridge cycling off appears to have been playing havoc with that second part, since 2007.
I guess I could just flip all loads to the other battery while it goes through these 2 steps after bulk, then flip it back after, but that wastes a bunch of solar juice in the most productive part of the day. But I have an excess during ASBV and FV anyway. Also this screws up my battery monitor and requires more resetting/rezeroing, as it cannot know what current is going to which battery as things are currently wired.
It would also put a very shallow daily cycle on the AGM and I have no Idea how that battery will respond to that, especially since it would be too easy to forget and cycle it till sundown or later.
So, how important is it? A week of cycles at the former setpoints, puts me at 1.250 after a "full charge" on the 7th day. At that point, 45 minutes at 15.9v puts met a 1.280, and a seeming reset point.
Perhaps I can reduce the number of minutes required to reach 1.280 on that 7th day, or reduce the minimum SG to 1.265 at 7 days by higher absv and float/finish, but at what point am I eroding the positive plate more than just maintaining 14.7 and 15.3 expecting to have to perform a weekly Eq.
How unrealistic is it to want to achieve a max baseline SG after every cycle. Should that be the goal? Max SG every discharge/charge cycle?
