Batteries discharged

Pasun

billy donnel	12:15 PM (0 minutes ago)

I have a question, My  NorthStar BLUE+ VRLA Pure Lead Carbon 190Ah, 12V batteries have discharged to 19.6 volts from their 56 odd volts, through an error of of some kind the AC got turned off, I don't have panels hooked up yet and was depending on the outback radian to keep my batteries charged. They have only been that way a month or so.  After I found the ac off, I turned it back on and i think they are to far discharged to charge based on the little I can find online to take a charge from the inverter. So I guess I need to know how to charge them back up so the inverter will take over and keep them charged. Look forward to any help anyone can give me.

Vic

Hello Pasun, welcome to the Forum.

Those batteries appear to be completely DEAD.  Many chargers cannot charge dead batteries.

So, this is completely off grid?  If no grid, then you must have a genset, that is normally used to charge batts, through the Radian (as there is NO solar)?

It is very bad for lead acid batts to sit for any time at all, when they are dead.

You may be able to borrow an dumb charger  --  old style,  with an analog meter, and no smarts and a genset to try to charge them ...

Am just trying to get the conversation going.   More later, Good Luck, Vic

Marc Kurth

I would suggest charging them individually at first. If you cannot find an old-school charger as Vic suggested, you can put another 12v healthy battery in parallel long enough to get a smart 12v charger to kick in. I have also used jumper cables from my pickup truck to achieve the same thing.

I would also check to see if Northstar suggests equalizing after taking an extended low voltage hit. They need it.

Marc

BB.

They sound dead... You can measure the voltage across each 12 volt battery and you could find one "failed" battery and the others are OK...

However, from what you describe (constant load, no charging over a long period of time)--The batteries are probably not in good shape.

You may be able to recover them enough to get the rest of the system running--But they probably will not reliably support your loads down the road (weeks/months/years).

-Bill

Pasun

Gentlemen I can not start to tell hw much I appreciate your thoughts and advice. to complete my story, this will be off grid eventually, for now it is a outback radian hung on the wall, batteries below it, tied into the AC to keep the batteries charged until I have panels up and running.

I made a mistake and purchased a grid tied solar system, which is fine, but as we all know it does not work when grid is down, wasn't thinking. So I decided to back this up with the radian and panels through a transfer switch should  grid ever go down for any length of time.

The solar person I was able to engage wired the radian into the main apnel so the ac would charge the batteries, somehow the ac breaker was turned off and I caught last week when the radian had a red low voltage light displayed. 

These batteries are brand new, sure hope there's a way to save them. Once again would appreciate any help and advice you have.