Excessive Battery Floating?
Hi,
I have been running my small cabin system for 2 years now and am wondering if batteries can spend "too much" time floating. My work schedule has me gone for 2 weeks and home for 2 weeks, when I am at work system is not used. When I am home system sees light use, mostly during the day, and usually only 1 or sometimes 2 nights. Most of the time an overnight cycle brings bank down to about 90% full. Only a couple times has bank been down close to 80% full. Would it be better to shut system right down for the 2 weeks that I am gone if batteries are fully charged? Should I shut down charging and let the bank be drawn down a little deeper from time to time? System is working fine, I just think I am not working these batteries very hard and wonder if it would be better if I didn't let them float so much. Thanks.
I have been running my small cabin system for 2 years now and am wondering if batteries can spend "too much" time floating. My work schedule has me gone for 2 weeks and home for 2 weeks, when I am at work system is not used. When I am home system sees light use, mostly during the day, and usually only 1 or sometimes 2 nights. Most of the time an overnight cycle brings bank down to about 90% full. Only a couple times has bank been down close to 80% full. Would it be better to shut system right down for the 2 weeks that I am gone if batteries are fully charged? Should I shut down charging and let the bank be drawn down a little deeper from time to time? System is working fine, I just think I am not working these batteries very hard and wonder if it would be better if I didn't let them float so much. Thanks.
510 watt pv, TS-MPPT 60, Exeltech XP1100, XP600 & XP250 @ 24V, 4x Trojan 105RE, Trimetric 2030, Yamaha EF2400i gen.
Comments
We have similar batteries. In our case they sit in float most of the winter. They are now 76 months old and doing fine. If you EQ every so often and make certain the electrolyte levels are high enough yours should last a long time too. Float is much better than sitting undercharged or partially discharged.
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Also, what does your solar charge controller do? Some may start with bulk/absorb every morning (at least for a few minutes, some may go longer, depending on programming).
As long as your controller goes to float (or quickly to float) as the sun comes up--Should be fine.
If flooded cell batteries, how much water are you using? Probably aim for needing to fill every ~2 months (on average). If you fill every month or more often--Voltage/charging is too high. if you don't fill every 6+ months, probably you can raise the voltage a bit.
-Bill