Lifeline Battery Recovery experiences?

[Smitty77]

I had a thread about our Magnum MS2812 going into Fault code mode overnight while boon docking. Posted under Magnum because I first thought I may have had a problem with my program parameters, and possibly a weak/going out circuit board(s), after a lightening outage at a park last year.

Looks like I have Lifeline Batteries that have grown weak on me. These are 5 years old/usage X's 4 L16's.

I monitored the batteries during the night, via Magnum remote panel. SOC remained good, based upon AH's out, slowly drifting down to 85% SOC around 5:45AM. Full Bank Voltage down to 11.3V, current AH draw of 17.0 - 17.4 AH's. (These are under load reported Voltages on the remote.)

As I watched, with the same 17.0 - 17.4 AH's draw, the reported under load Voltage started to drop .1 and sometimes .2V, over 4 minute period down to 10.3V.

I took measurements at the battery with Multi Meter. 10.29 - 10.31V. I did still cable connected measurements of each battery and recorded 6.15V / 5.91V / 4.5V / 4.14V.

During the day, I brought the bank up to a full charge. Then afterward's did two back to back four hour Conditioning/Equalizing.

(Note: When I bought the batteries in Jan, 2013. The Lifeline Tech Manual I read, Rev C, said to only Condition the batteries if noticeable capacity was lost. I note that the current Rev E states that Conditioning every 2-4 weeks, maybe be the right thing to do under certain circumstances. (Talking to a boating buddy on the phone yesterday, he said he knows he read that same paragraph in Rev D too. But he could not recall if it was in Rev C(?) and I had just missed it.)

I only mention this Tech Manual here, because until late December of 2017, I'd never Condition this set of batteries, and that was only a four hour Conditioning, via the MS2812.

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OK, long background to get to my question.

If I find after these Conditioning's that the battery capacity is still not healthy. Would taking the batteries into a shop that Lifeline recommends for Deep Discharge Recovery process provide any chance of further restoring the weaker batteries?

Has anyone had experiences with Lifeline Deep Discharge Recovery process?

Would like to get another year or two out of this bank of batteries. May even jump back to only the two best batteries and run with 400AH's if needed, to get a few more years out of it. (Even with the Samsung fridge, we could turn the Inverter off for few hours of a time during the night, to accommodate a half size bank of what we're used to running on.)

Info sharing, and opinions most welcomed:)!

Best to all,
Smitty

[Smitty77]

Ductape, LY, MW,

Many of your questions I do not have an answer to. MW, you said succinct Yes/No answers are required, and I don't have them. Looks like this is 'My Bad' for not digging deeper to understand the specifics of battery management. And I guarantee it was not done in a way to willingly ignore Lifeline, and or to cause a demise or damage to the battery bank. None the less, my ignorance in knowledge of battery management seems to have impacted my batteries.

I can repeat, as an RV'er non educated/techie/experienced to your levels of battery management knowledge. That when I asked Lifeline if the Magnum MS2812 AGM1 Charge Setting was appropriate for my battery bank, they said yes. And rightm or wrong, I thought I was covered to support this battery bank. I was also coached to live off of SOC. Well SOC seems to be a calculation based upon battery bank size, AH 'Bathtub' In/Out Amp hours. I never focused on Voltage, as the my understanding of the Voltage displayed on the Magnum ARC50 fed from the BMK Meter, and the MidNite Classic 150, are 'under load' or 'under charge' voltages. As when I'm in the coach the batteries are constantly in use and in charge.

In their 5 years of usage, they've been on Shore Power Magnum MS2812 AGM1 Charger Maintenance 85-90% of the time. We only travel 6-8 months a year, so four to just under 6 months of the year the Magnum has maintained the batteries.

The MS2812 has a spec that mentions Continuous Output at 25C = 125 ADC max, Charger Efficiency is rated at 85%, and Power Factor is > 95%. If 125ADC relates to 125Amps(?), then it would not equal the 160A C/20 rating... If this is correct, then I was given bad input, and did not know enough to challenge it, and have been under charging the batteries during their lifetime. May have been lucky some of the time, with the combination of Solar and Magnum chargers combined, getting closer to the level needed.

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I can't undue the last 5 years, of primarily MS2812 AGM1 setting Charger support of this bank.

While traveling, I will not have the ability to remove the batteries for weighting, and or getting Professional assessment and possible recovery/restoring of the battery.

I've used the Magnum Equalizing, AGM1 values that also match Lifeline's value for Conditioning (With temperature sensor adjustments, this has been between 15.4-15.6V as I've looked at the ARC-50 Remote. Two four hour Conditioning Cycles back to back, as Lifeline Tech Manual says 8 hours. I'm going to discharge the battery down to 75% SOC. Stop. Let rest as best I can for four hours while on Shore Power with no further charge. Take a Voltage Reading. Then fully recharge, and repeat two more four cycles of Magnums AGM1 Equalizing/Conditioning.

No magic I suppose left, and while traveling, is this not the best that I can do to try and restore/knock of sulfating build up to get the batteries a bit healthier? (Or, is this just wishful thinking?)

With less then 5-6 weeks of travel. I'm hesitant to buy a sophisticated charger to apply higher charging values over this period of time. Getting back to the home bae, I'll ask for Lifeline to recommend a Professional local shop for assistance in Recovery of the batteries.

I will continue to try to understand that if the MS2812 is undersized for the job of charging the 800AH bank, what my options are to address this. Different stand alone charger? Splitting, A/B'ing isolation the bank into two 400AH's segments, that the MS2812 should 'surely' support. Other's, etc.

Not trying to be flippant in this response. But not being at your level's of battery management expertise, I both scramble to understand some of the questions... And admit after my adult beverage, wonder why in five years of me talking to both Lifeline and Magnum Tech Support - I'm just now hearing that my Battery Management approach was not what it should have been, and or, the equipment to support it. Frustrating, and it's looking more like an expensive opportunity:)! (And to give Lifeline a plug. If I have been not properly maintaining the charge levels of this bank. Which is what I think I've inferred by some of the posts - pretty impressive I've got 5 years out of them (And sad too.).

Again, not trying to dodge questions, or argue, or be flippant...

Best to all,
Smitty







I will

[landyacht318]

The times I have read about Lifeline AGM not living upto expectations, is when they were never recharged at a 20% or higher rate from their most depleted state.

Most of the time the owners claimed to recharge upto ,then hold at 14.4v, till amps taper to 0.5% of capacity, and seemed to willfully ignore the lifeline recommendation of 20% or higher charge rate when regularly cycled to 50% SOC/DOD.

Be glad you do not have to meet Odysseys 40% rate, on that much battery capacity.

Odyssey capacity recovery procedure is also a fairly unique recommendation, and nothing like Lifeline:

http://www.odysseybattery.com/documents/ODYSSEY_Battery_Reconditioning_Charge_Procedure.pdf

[MEXICOWANDERER]

Eight is playing it liberal as in a diagnostic...

[Ductape]

Pretty sure LL says one half percent... get to 4 amps.

[MEXICOWANDERER]

How often do you fully recharge the batteries?

Fully

Is 1% of amp hour bank capacity. 800 amp hours times .01

=

8.00 amps or less at 14.4 volts or more?

If no, did you EVER allow the batteries to see 14.40 volts and keep charging until amperage slumped to 8.0 or less?

Another way of asking a question. If you let pure solar charge your batteries -- how many days would pass before you started the generator and fully recharged the batteries.?

These are relevant questions and they need succinct YES/NO answers if you would be so kind as to accommodate them. Thank you.

[GordonThree]

The Magnum BMK is a pretty advanced unit, it's not a simple ammeter.

The Magnum itself uses temperature compensated charging.

When I discharge on my bank, the Ah returned has always been more than the Ah withdrawn... This shows up as + on the Ah counter. The charger doesn't rely exclusively on the counter alone.

MS2812 maxes out at 125 amps, if you need more current you can run two in parallel, or supplement with a Meanwell or something like that.

[BFL13]

Seem to be confusing temp adjusted voltage with charging efficiency adjustment.

Say there is a 5% heat loss when charging a battery. You run the charger till the AH counter says 100AH has gone in. But you only restored 95AH of that to the battery, the other 5 AH went to heat loss.

If your "full" 100% SOC is 800AH, and you start at 50% SOC at 400AH, then your counter will say "full" when it has done 400AH, but in fact you have only restored 380AH, so you are at 400+380 = 780/800 = 97.5% SOC.

Do that several times and it just gets worse and worse.

Perhaps the Magnum monitor does have a default charging efficiency set in, I don't know. The Trimetric does, but it is a WAG for "typical" and you still get out of whack unless you do some work with it--which is great for a stable situation like with a stick house, but not so good with an RV on the move.

You need to put the Magnum ammeter on the batts and charge them at 14.4v ( whatever the battery spec says), and watch for the amps to drop to near zero. (no load) Now they are as full as they can be at whatever condition they are in wrt sulfation. Now you reset the AH counter to zero.

And now you can do a discharge as usual, until you get down to where the "morning voltage" (more or less resting--no furnace and no solar yet) is 12.2ish.

What does the AH counter say? That is about half your real capacity. (There is no percentage loss on the discharge, so the AH count is real on a discharge, just not on a recharge)

[Smitty77]

Ductape wrote:
800 AH you need 160 amp charge current to meet the 20% of capacity recommendation from Lifeline for deep discharge bulk charging. I had a similar setup on our prior coach, and noted some symptoms of early voltage drop under load after a lot of shallow discharges and slow solar recharging.

I had a marine battery selector that allowed me to divide the big bank in half. I found that by halving the bank, drawing the smaller bank down to around 50% and then vigorously recharging with my converter (at 27% of C) they got stronger each cycle. Voltage drop took longer under load and charge acceptance increased.

I also periodically top charge them and use a precision ammeter to ensure I get them to the 1/2% spec.

Thanks! This is an area where I'll gladly do more homework:)!

When I talked with Lifeline about the Magnum AGM1 Lifeline setting, they said it would factor the battery bank size as long as I entered it properly. I remember the tech at least three times explaining to me that I had an 800AH bank, not 1200AH. (Well, I knew this. Think I confused him, or he misunderstood me when I said we had the 1200W of Solar.). And yes, the Magnum is set to 800AH bank. (I don't recall what the efficiency is set to now, as I adjusted this a tad when the batteries turned age 3, to compensate for aging. Will check that...)

But upon reading your post, I reflected back and noted that when first turning on Shore Power feed, with say a SOC level in the mid 70's level, the Magnum Charger would engage, and jump to the 115-125A level. I think the higher I recall seeing, was 131A.

But as the Bulk charge took place, this would taper down to 75-85A relatively soon. Say within 30-45 mins. I assumed this was due to the reading of the batteries, and temperature sensor adjustments?

The times when I would leave the MidNite Classic150 Controller on along with the Magnum MS2812 Charger. I would see it adding 40-50A Bulk, on top of the Magnum's 115-125A when it first started. So a combined 155-175A going into bank, if my thinking is correct(?).

I like how you've A/B'd your bank so you could get more dedicated Amps into a half bank during a charge cycle.

Seems my homework is to under C/20 value of 160A, and review with Magnum how/why the max I see is in the 115-125A range?

Would not be surprised if I have here a situation where I 'Burned as I learned!' - in this case, if I've shot these batteries to heck, and expensive one:)!

And note MW, I'm still doing more studying of your post. Know I can't do any weighting of the batteries as we're traveling. That will need to wait until April when we're back at home.

Will also consider the A/B isolations switch of the Bank into 400AH half, especially if the talk with Magnum reveals the info I received that the AGM1 would adjust to support the entered size of the bank (That information was from the Lifeline Tech.).

Beautiful sunset shaping up at Lost Dutchman State Park... So time for an adult beverage, or two...

Best to all, and thanks again,
Smitty

[Smitty77]

BFL13 wrote:
If your AH counter does not take heat loss on recharging into account, then it will over-state the AHs going in and declare you are full when you aren't yet. You will have batteries that are undercharged and sulfating. (as you suspect yours are)

EG Trimetric has a default charging efficiency that is adjustable, but you have to play with that for several recharges to get it right on. So after a while the AH counter gets out of whack and needs to be reset. If you leave it on "auto-reset" and you have solar, it will be wrong by resetting itself every time it gets dark

No idea what the Magnum and Whizbang do about that. However, if you have never reset the AH counter for four years, then it could be reading anything by now.

More info:

Magnum MS2812, with Temp Sensor, with BMK Meter, with AGS, with Smart Battery Combiner for the Chassis as the Auxiliary battery.

The MidNite Classic150 is a 96 Amp capable Controller, fed via 1200W (5X's Panasonic 240W 48V High Efficiency Panels. With the WhzBngJr added. The WhzBngJr combined with the Controller, mimic's the BMK Meter. Also note that the MidNite also has a battery Temperature Sensor like the Magnum. So both are adjusted during charging, and discharged, based upon these Temp Sensor's actual battery temps.

These are all funned thru the Shunt. So all charging, and all drawdown/usage going/from the House bank, including Alternator flowing over from the combiner, goes and is read via the Shunt valve. (I've nicknamed it 'The Gateway' In & Out of the house bank.

So expect that the SOC AH In/Out calculations reflected by both the Magnum BMK Meter feed to the ARC50 Remote, and the MidNite Classic 150 Controllers remote display, are accurate as I know how to make them. (But again, sure willing to learn if I'm wrong.)

Thank's,
Smitty

[Ductape]

800 AH you need 160 amp charge current to meet the 20% of capacity recommendation from Lifeline for deep discharge bulk charging. I had a similar setup on our prior coach, and noted some symptoms of early voltage drop under load after a lot of shallow discharges and slow solar recharging.

I had a marine battery selector that allowed me to divide the big bank in half. I found that by halving the bank, drawing the smaller bank down to around 50% and then vigorously recharging with my converter (at 27% of C) they got stronger each cycle. Voltage drop took longer under load and charge acceptance increased.

I also periodically top charge them and use a precision ammeter to ensure I get them to the 1/2% spec.

[BFL13]

If your AH counter does not take heat loss on recharging into account, then it will over-state the AHs going in and declare you are full when you aren't yet. You will have batteries that are undercharged and sulfating. (as you suspect yours are)

EG Trimetric has a default charging efficiency that is adjustable, but you have to play with that for several recharges to get it right on. So after a while the AH counter gets out of whack and needs to be reset. If you leave it on "auto-reset" and you have solar, it will be wrong by resetting itself every time it gets dark

No idea what the Magnum and Whizbang do about that. However, if you have never reset the AH counter for four years, then it could be reading anything by now.

[Smitty77]

I'll answer some here, and do some homework, and answer more in a follow on post.

First. Yes these are Lifeline L16's rated 400AH at 20 hr rate. So full bank of 800AH (And X's2 would be 400AH's.)

Yes I should have said 17 amps draw... not AH draw. (My wife says English is my second language, and it's unclear what my first is. Obviously, it's not techie electrical:)! Admit freely that I'm often proving to myself that I did not really know what I thought I knew. At least I still remain opened to learning and being corrected.)

'11 volts range at 85% SOC'? Well, I believe the Magnum SOC is pretty much measure AH's Out vs AH's in, based upon user entered parameter of Battery Bank size? Starting at 100% SOC Magnum and MidNite both reflecting Full Charge and or Resting, depending upon controller vocabulary. The 85% SOC was accurate, based upon reported AH's out from full charge. (The MidNite indicated 83%, but they're always within 1 to 2% of each other.

Until the February 2017 revision by Lifeline to bump up Float 13.2 - 13.4, I've had the Magnum Lifeline AGM1 setting being used to manage the batteries while on Shore Power. When I learned of the slight increase of Float in mid June of 2017, I used Custom settings to bump Float up to the new level.

My MidNite Classic150, was set to Lifeline Tech Manual values, also adjusted in June to the slightly higher float. I also have the WhzBngJr component for the MidNite, and use Ending Amps.

I will admit that until recently, I'd had no reason to suspect the Lifeline's were not doing well. Possibly may have noted the problem earlier, if been boon docking more. But the flavor of last years travels, was primarily Shore Power to Shore Power. One or two nights of boon docking last year. With the first night LBCO cut out when I fired up the coffee pot. (Which in hindsight, was probably when I should have taken more notice and done more voltage Multi Meter and Resting testing.) And as mentioned, also because I believe Lifeline has changed their recommendations, I'd never Conditioned the battery bank before the end of last year.

All that being said, if Magnum AGM1 setting for Lifeline's on the MS2812 is good. Then the answer is Yes, the batteries have been well cared for. And note, when I added the Magnum, Solar Panels and MidNite Classic 150 about 4 1/2 years ago. I called Lifeline to see get their perspective of Magnum's AGM1 setting. Reviewed the info with the Lifeline Tech, and he said that all checked over OK. Second Note. When I heard of the new slightly increased Float values, which I suspect Lifeline added because batteries were 'walking down' some, I called Magnum to ask if AGM1 settings could be adjusted. Yes, if I wanted to buy a new control board, so thus I went with the Custom settings.

Now here is where I think I learned something. A monitoring of SOC reflecting a health SOC level, on weak battery - does not mean the battery will not be at lower voltage, and go out on you.... I basically lived off of SOC, while we were boon docking. Need to add Voltage checking readings too. And need to learn what under load voltages correlate to as far as resting voltage - if anything at all.

Really appreciate the questions, and input. The sponge of the brain is not as fast at absorbing as it was a few decades ago, but ready and willing to slowly absorb:)!

Smitty

[BFL13]

"another year or two out of this bank of batteries. May even jump back to only the two best batteries and run with 400AH's if needed, "

You need to be clear about AH capacity to do the 20% mentioned above. Two 6s at 400AH seems unlikely.

In the OP do you mean 17 amps draw and not "AH draw"? It is all very confusing.

11 volts at 85% SOC is crazy. Likely, your monitor entries for AH count are way wrong. Some monitors need frequent resets of the AH counter. Also the correct AH capacity of your four-6s bank in case that is wrong.

[CA_Traveler]

Drive to a good battery shop and have them load test the batteries, saves removing them.

In the meantime separate each 12V bank, charge, measure and test each battery in the bank. You might find 2 good ones that can be used for your year limp along.

[GordonThree]

Smitty77 wrote:
So Gordon - In the boating community, you're saying their's a high probability of these becoming non environmental friendly boat anchors:)!

We come off of this trip mid April, and will limp along as needed.

As I've read here, and elsewhere many times - a non resting battery voltage read is not a true measurement of the batteries voltage. We're moving sites today, but when we get to the new site (Same campground.) I'll make sure the bank is fully charged again. Then we'll turn off all power draw for 3-4 hours, and I'll take a reading at the batteries again.

Question: I'm not disconnecting cables, so these 4 6V's are connected. When I'm taking individual battery readings of interconnected batteries, are they valid or off because they're interconnected? (Really want to see what the 4.15 and 4.5V batteries reading of two days ago, look like after Conditioning cycles.)

TIA,
Smitty

I'm glad Mex joined this thread, he's an expert and can advise you better than I. His idea to weight each battery is great, you can find out if a battery has dried up without having to drill 🙂

Measuring the 6v batteries, you have 2 in series and those 2 are parallel with 2 more right? I would disconnect one terminal from each battery before measuring. The parallel configuration means one series pair is constantly charging/discharging the other series pair.

When you're at your next site, and confident about having a full charge, disconnect one terminal on each battery, and see where you're at after several hours to settle.