BFL13 wrote:
"On a positive note, I do hook up to shore power and/or run my generator enough, so I'm sure my battery bank is getting to full charge regularly."
Unless you have an AH counter and an hydrometer I would not be so confident you are getting those batts fully charged.
"But ****, 14.00 is so much lower than the batt manufacturer's 14.7 requirement! "
Also the higher voltage could get them recharged faster by increasing their amps acceptance rate if the charger can do that many. Can get more done in the same length of daylight.
"The system does product more power than I'm using in my first couple months of operating, not counting the absorption refer on AC. I seem to burn about 175AHish a day or so and haven't needed to run my Honda 2000, except a couple 3-4 day rain events"
I have not done a detailed calculation (your job) but I doubt you can restore 175AH during daylight with only a 55amp charger. Just not enough time in the day. Most folks in that situation have to run their gens and use high amp chargers for an hour or two in the morning before they can leave the rest to solar, and hope to get to full before dark.
Perhaps look at reducing the size of that battery bank. Do more of the 175AH recharge at a lower SOC range where battery will accept higher amps. Right now those 175AH are coming from the slow to recharge top end of the SOC range.
Interesting. Thanks.
If plugging the 125amp magnum charger into a 30 or 50 amp pedestal for a day or so won't charge the batteries, I guess they won't be charged. Don't know what else to do. I'm having trouble getting reliable readings on the battery volts, because getting them settled and resting with no load seems a rare event.
Note sure about charging 175 amps. If I'm harvesting say 45AH, 175/45 is 3.9 hours. I suspect the tapering adds to this time considerably, which I'm not accounting for. I'll run the batteries down 175AH by am on a sunny day and see what happens. I downloaded a spreadsheet built by Jack Mayer, who does some RV solar work. It essentially backs into the morning genset time requirement. If it appears that I'm going to have to use a generator that often, I'll have an ONAN 3.6Kw installed, cuz I'm not fooling with that Honda 2000 that much.
I understand the inverse relationship of lower SOC, higher charge rates you mention, but I just bought the bank, so I'll see if I can make it work.
My batts are (4) 6v, 415AH bats serial/parallel for 830AH @ 12Vdc. Do you know how often they should be brought to full charge in order NOT do damage them?
