Low battery cutoff setting for AGM batteries
nobadays
Registered Users Posts: 43 ✭✭
I've hunted high and low but have yet to find good information for what I am trying to do.
We live off-grid in the Southern Colorado Rockies most of the year, then snowbird to AZ through the roughest part of the winter. My desire is to keep my shop 24v, 4x6v - 235ah Vmax AGM battery solar system up and running to power my Starlink so I have access to my security camera. Tried this last winter but my cheap Chinese inverter had a LBCO at 19v, this triggered my auto sensing Epever SCC to think I had a 12v system so that in turn triggered an over charge shutdown of the SCC and pretty well toasted the cheap golf cart batteries that I had then. Equalization did bring them back but I now have the AGM Vmax batteries in place. (BTW, the cabin is powered by all Tier 1 equipment and lifepo4 batteries that are shutdown in the winter.)
To be clear, this system can shut down for periods of time without cause for alarm. For many years we had no way to monitor the cabin and friends check in almost weekly to insure no one is molesting our place.
I now have switched to a Victron 24/1200 inverter and have manually set the SCC to 24v. Throughout the winter snow events will cover my 1000w solar array... set at 51° and prevent charging. Rarely has snow stayed on the panels more than 3-4 days. But the Starlink (auto heating turned off so draw is ~20w - 40w +/-) can eventually draw the batteries down if charging is not happening. I don't want to repeat last year's debacle so your help will be appreciated for appropriate settings.
Looking a SOC chart for the AGM's I chose these settings:
Low battery shutdown - 23.5v (~35%)
Reconnect and alarm - 23.9v (~40%)
Charge detect - - - - 24.2v (~55%) For Victron, if LOBCO is triggered 3 times in a row, the inverter will remain off until this voltage is reached, it will then wake up and resume inverting.
My fear is the spread between cutoff and reconnect. How much surface charge might be on the batteries when the SCC shuts down so that almost immediately it might settle back to 23.9v and Reconnect only to shut down again as the inverter draw drops it back to 23.5v. And, are my settings too low?
I guess the question would be, what would you recommend for settings?
Thank you!
Don
We live off-grid in the Southern Colorado Rockies most of the year, then snowbird to AZ through the roughest part of the winter. My desire is to keep my shop 24v, 4x6v - 235ah Vmax AGM battery solar system up and running to power my Starlink so I have access to my security camera. Tried this last winter but my cheap Chinese inverter had a LBCO at 19v, this triggered my auto sensing Epever SCC to think I had a 12v system so that in turn triggered an over charge shutdown of the SCC and pretty well toasted the cheap golf cart batteries that I had then. Equalization did bring them back but I now have the AGM Vmax batteries in place. (BTW, the cabin is powered by all Tier 1 equipment and lifepo4 batteries that are shutdown in the winter.)
To be clear, this system can shut down for periods of time without cause for alarm. For many years we had no way to monitor the cabin and friends check in almost weekly to insure no one is molesting our place.
I now have switched to a Victron 24/1200 inverter and have manually set the SCC to 24v. Throughout the winter snow events will cover my 1000w solar array... set at 51° and prevent charging. Rarely has snow stayed on the panels more than 3-4 days. But the Starlink (auto heating turned off so draw is ~20w - 40w +/-) can eventually draw the batteries down if charging is not happening. I don't want to repeat last year's debacle so your help will be appreciated for appropriate settings.
Looking a SOC chart for the AGM's I chose these settings:
Low battery shutdown - 23.5v (~35%)
Reconnect and alarm - 23.9v (~40%)
Charge detect - - - - 24.2v (~55%) For Victron, if LOBCO is triggered 3 times in a row, the inverter will remain off until this voltage is reached, it will then wake up and resume inverting.
My fear is the spread between cutoff and reconnect. How much surface charge might be on the batteries when the SCC shuts down so that almost immediately it might settle back to 23.9v and Reconnect only to shut down again as the inverter draw drops it back to 23.5v. And, are my settings too low?
I guess the question would be, what would you recommend for settings?
Thank you!
Don
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