Yes it's my own D***N fault
First part of this was posted Sunday on the "What Did You Do to Your Class A MH Today" Forum. Not really asking for help. Sympathy maybe. Just really a comment. Perhaps someone will learn something...
Forum Discussion
westend wrote:
If you have solar, why is it disconnected?
I'm trying to resurrect these batteries which were inadvertently allowed a reallllly deep discharge. To do this I need to control the charging current and voltage carefully.
The solar is problematic with two main concerns:
1) A long run of undersized wire between the controller and batteries. In full sun this can result in a full one volt drop at 20+ Amps. This causes the controller to taper the charge way too early--It thinks the battery is at 14.8 when it is only 13.8. If I increase the output voltage to make up for the drop at a high charging current, then as the battery chargers and current decreases so does the voltage drop until at a very low current the battery voltage would increase to nearly 15.8 Not a good thing.
2) At the moment the rig in parked under very tall trees so they are severely shaded. Best I can get out of them is 4 amps or so a few hours a day. Once I have the batteries back in shape I'll start worrying about the solar. I think the easiest fix will be to change to a controller with remote battery voltage sense. The other option will be to run at least #4 wires. But that is another project. The first is to save these batteries.
