Trojan Industrial batteries not working

northerner

Re: Trojan Industrial batteries not working

I'll be in the same boat as you NG in the winter. I'm counting on fairly significant generator time, primarily on those stretches of stormy days. We do get plenty of sun in the winter, but it's usually in the latter half. I think December will be the worst month.

NorthGuy

Re: Trojan Industrial batteries not working

northerner wrote: »

I'll be in the same boat as you NG in the winter. I'm counting on fairly significant generator time, primarily on those stretches of stormy days. We do get plenty of sun in the winter, but it's usually in the latter half. I think December will be the worst month.

We had 6 sunny days between November 18 (when we installed the panels) and the end of the year.

northerner

Re: Trojan Industrial batteries not working

NorthGuy wrote: »

We had 6 sunny days between November 18 (when we installed the panels) and the end of the year.

This has been a bad winter for cloud cover. It has been the same here as well. I'm also hearing the same thing in the Vancouver area, that this winter has been gloomy. We normally get plenty of sunshine here in winter, particularly when you get those cold, arctic high pressure systems. You really need the sun then too!

NorthGuy

Re: Trojan Industrial batteries not working

northerner wrote: »

This has been a bad winter for cloud cover. It has been the same here as well. I'm also hearing the same thing in the Vancouver area, that this winter has been gloomy. We normally get plenty of sunshine here in winter, particularly when you get those cold, arctic high pressure systems. You really need the sun then too!

My wife said all Decembers are like that. She always watches the weather. May be it was a little bit worse than usual, but Decembers are gloomy all the time. Doesn't matter much for me. My panels get shaded very badly in December. I may have new panels installed. I found one non-shady place.

northerner

Re: Trojan Industrial batteries not working

NorthGuy wrote: »

My wife said all Decembers are like that. She always watches the weather. May be it was a little bit worse than usual, but Decembers are gloomy all the time. Doesn't matter much for me. My panels get shaded very badly in December. I may have new panels installed. I found one non-shady place.

Yes, I agree, December is the worst month. But this year has been particularly bad. I've heard locals here say they have never seen it so cloudy for so long as this past winter. We started to see a big improvement in February. It also has been much warmer, with more snow than average as well. (largely due to a predominant SW flow from the Pacific). I think the coldest we've had is about -35C and not for very long.

I find with my 1.4kw array, that I usually get at least 1 kwh in on a stormy day, mid winter. Occasionally, I only get a fraction of that on a really dark day. I'm thinking that if I triple my solar array size, I will be taking in usually 3 kwh or better, most days in mid winter, which isn't bad! On a sunny day mid winter, I can take in excess of 6 kwh currently.

mvas

NorthGuy said:  My wife said all Decembers are like that. She always watches the weather. May be it was a little bit worse than usual, but Decembers are gloomy all the time. Doesn't matter much for me. My panels get shaded very badly in December. I may have new panels installed. I found one non-shady place.

So, did this battery bank last 8 years?

706jim

No but this thread did.

NorthGuy

mvas said:

So, did this battery bank last 8 years?

Yes. Almost 9 years already. There's no perceivable capacity loss so far.

I charged them at 64V most of the time. I tried to drop the voltage several times. Every time I did that, even by 0.5V, I could not maintain specific gravity any more. So I had to go back to 64V.

Electrolyte became somewhat dirty. 

About 3 years ago, one cell got a soft short. At first, it stopped losing water, and then after a year or so, SG went below 1.2. I charged this cell individually with 2V PSU every day for several hours @60A when the bank was in float. I did this every day for a moth or two. Eventually, the bad cell improved and became indistinguishable from others. Last time I measured SG last January, its SG was Ok.

When the cell was bad, its voltage never went high enough, so I changed the charge voltage to 63.5 V to compensate. It's still at 63.5 V. I will measure SG next month, and if it is somewhat lower than the stock 1.26, I'll change it back to 64 V.

carleriksen

@NorthGuy

9 years, not bad so far then all things considered. 

What DOD do you typically run?
Do you mostly charge to full capacity everyday?

Outside of the 'break in' troubles, have these batteries performed in their daily use to both spec and your expectations after you settled on the much higher voltage?