Solar and Lifeline
Hi y’all First thanks to all who have tried to help with this project I finally got my Renogy system up and running. 4 -100 watt panels on the roof. 30amp mppt controller, 2000w pure sine wave inve...
Forum Discussion
Smitty77 wrote:BFL13 wrote:
Smitty, did you mean "amps" when you posted "AH" in your question? Perhaps you could edit that if so, to make the question more understandable. Thanks.
Corrected, and thanks. And sorry my rambling was not clear - coffee delivery problems today:)!
Basically wanted to confirm that higher charging rate levels for Lifeline's, is preferable to lower charging rate levels. To avoid sulfation. And that I had interpreted MW's comment about larger battery banks, and living on the upper range of SOC, can pay dividends too...
Best to you, and all,
Smitty
Yes, Lifelines and some/(all?) other AGMs want the higher amps charging 20% or better up to their spec limits (some AGMs specify no higher than 27% EG) when discharged low enough to have a Bulk Stage (below 75% approx. if you use 20%)
However, if you add battery AH to make the bank bigger so you only discharge to 75% and operate in the higher SOC zone above that, you will not be able to do the 20% charging rate.
So it is not possible to do both. Luckily, Mex is clarifying lately that if you do operate in the higher shallow-cycling zone, your batteries will not be harmed as long as you do recharge them to true full (0.5/100AH at 14.4v) every so often. That means you are excused from having to discharge them all the way down to 50% and then do a 20% recharge just to meet that requirement.
I still think it would be a good idea to toss in a deep cycle 20% recharge once in a while even so, but can't back up that claim.
Which is fine until you consider generator running time to recharge from 75-100 SOC, where amps acceptance is low and slow. The idea of operating in the 50-80 zone is to realize the high amps fast charging there with shorter gen running times. That also fits with doing the 20% in Bulk.
Main thing is to first camp how you like and then do what you can with the battery situation. Do a bit of this and a bit of that, but be sure to get them truly full as often as is practical.
Your batteries work for you; you do not work for them. But also:
Look after your batteries and they will look after you!
