Mixing rolls and trojan

castilloj · November 2011

Hello guys I have 8 rolls s600 batteries and 4 of them I believe are bad. Could I replace the 4 with the trojanl16P batteries ?I can purchase them for 248 each
I'm not sure rolls will warranty them because I was using the 8 on a 24 v system and I'm sure they are gonna say I undercharged them. With the 4 new batteries I plan on installing my new outback 48v inverter. Which I wasn't able to use because of the 4 bad batteries. Also would you suggest any other type of batteries to replace the4?
Thanks

waynefromnscanada · November 2011

Re: Mixing rolls and trojan

How old are the 4 bad batteries? And why do you think they're bad while the others are still good? How have you been charging them?
Looking for their history of use and performance.

castilloj · November 2011

Re: Mixing rolls and trojan

They are about 2 years old. I used a refractometer and on each of the batteries onecell is under the recharge level while the others are on good .

waynefromnscanada · November 2011

Re: Mixing rolls and trojan

When did they last go through an EQ cycle, and did it help at all?
Trying to figure the cause of the failure. Whatever the cause, I fear if it's not corrected, it's going to repeat, repeat, repeat and either cost you big $, or drive you away from whatever you're using the batteries for.

castilloj · November 2011

Re: Mixing rolls and trojan

I did it last week , and no . Eq did not bring them up.

waynefromnscanada · November 2011

Re: Mixing rolls and trojan

castilloj wrote: »

I did it last week , and no . Eq did not bring them up.

OUCH!
Wish we knew why they failed - - - - - leaves the future of any new batteries in doubt, even if you replaced the whole lot.
That said, it's generally a bad idea to mix new batteries with batteries of a year or more older, especially if, for whatever reason, those older batteries have reduced their capacity over time. The old batteries usually bring the new ones down to their level quite quickly.
Have you got ANY idea why they failed? Were they run down dead, or left partly charged for an extended time instead of being rapidly recharged? Were they deeply discharged numerous times? Was the electrolyte allowed to drop, exposing plates to air?

castilloj · November 2011

Re: Mixing rolls and trojan

well i ran the generator from 8 am -11 am then again from 6-10 pm.
from 10 pm-to 7 am i use around 5 amps ac.
In the day time i would usually get around 700 watts from my solar panels.
ived been using a 24 v outback inverter. and i bought that by upgrading it to a 48 v it would help charge the batteries better. but since some of my batteries were already bad. the inverter would not have enough power, so i had to switch back to the 24v inverter.
i had my batteries connected series/ parallel but now i have it connected series because of my bad batteries.

waynefromnscanada · November 2011

Re: Mixing rolls and trojan

So, it sounds like over night you consume 5 KWH, but on an average day, your solar puts back less than 3 KWH, and that's assuming you have no daytime loads to consume part of what the panels produce, which is unlikely.
If this is true, then there's your problem right there and any new batteries will meet the same fate.
Generally your panels should be capable of putting out almost 10% the amphour rating of your batteries. If I read right, your batteries are rated 600 AH @ the 100 hour rate, thus if you have your batteries configured for 48 volts, your panels should be capable of dumping nearly 60 amps into your 48 volt battery string, or almost 120 amps if your batteries are configured for 24 volts. That's over 4000 watts of panels, and closer to 5000 watts if you consider all the normal system losses.
The solution? Either greatly increase your solar panel wattage, or greatly reduce both your battery size AND your consumption. It's far easier and cheaper to conserve, than to produce power that may be squandered.

castilloj · November 2011

Re: Mixing rolls and trojan

But would the generator help in charging? I have to run the generator because that's when we use freezers and washing machines and ac.

waynefromnscanada · November 2011

Re: Mixing rolls and trojan

castilloj wrote: »

But would the generator help in charging? I have to run the generator because that's when we use freezers and washing machines and ac.

You could use the generator to bring the batteries up to the "absorb" stage early in the morning before the sun hits your panels, then hope the panels get enough hours of sun and can finish them off, bringing them up to "float". IF there aren't loads draining off the power the panels are trying to put in the batteries, it just might work.

castilloj · November 2011

Re: Mixing rolls and trojan

With my kind if system . What kind of batteries would recommend?
Another thing is I keep my battery bank outside. And the temperatures run 80-90 everyday. I keep the batteries covered.

waynefromnscanada · November 2011

Re: Mixing rolls and trojan

First thing is to find out your average power usage each day. Once that's determined, the battery size can be determined, and from there, the wattage of panels required to properly charge your batteries.

First - - what is your total consumption in KWH per 24 hour day.
Second - - battery size to support that consumption.
Third - - panel wattage required to properly charge a battery bank of that size.

No lead-acid battery, regardless of make or name, will survive being discharged too deeply, or not regularly being promptly recharged and brought up to full charge at least every couple of days.
Re keeping the batteries outside and covered in 90* temps, are they just covered to keep the sun off them, but still get plenty of air flow to help them from overheating, that may be the best you can do, but those high temps are hard on batteries. Hopefully they're not in a hot house type of situation.

castilloj · December 2011

Re: Mixing rolls and trojan

If I use 5 amps AC for 17 hours what would my consumption be?
I really use my generator to charge my batteries,not my panels.
I have a outback fx2524 inverter and a outback fx 48v inverter. I purchased the 48 v inverter because of the higher charger capacity . Also I have determined that I'm just gonna get 8 new batteries. I'm just not sure if I should get the Trojan L16H or L 16P?

BB. · December 2011

Re: Mixing rolls and trojan

The amount of "work" is Power*Time:

Power * Time = Watts * Hours = Volts * Amps * hours = Work in Watt*Hours
120 VAC * 5 amps * 17 hours = 10,200 WH = 10.2 kWH per day

Now... The details. For alternating current, the "phase" between the Voltage and the Current, and the Current wave form can make a big difference in power uses... You need a power meter (such as a Kill-a-Watt meter or equivalent) to tell you the Watts/kWH used by your loads...

For example, the "typical" AC induction motor may have a Power Factor of ~0.67 or so... One of the "real AC" power equations is:

Power = Volts * Amps * Power Factor
Work = Power * Time = 120 VAC * 5 Amps * 0.67 PF * 17 hours = 6,834 WH = 6.8 kWH per day

So, without knowing the details about your A/C's input power requirements--There could be a fair sized difference in the amount of power used (newer "Inverter" input A/C systems and some induction motor systems do have power factor correction to around 0.95 (near 1.0--is good).

Note, when designing your wiring and inverter, you still use what is called VA (volts * amps) to account for the fact that a poor Power Factor system uses "more" current than a unit with PF near to 1.0 ...

VA is (pretty much) what your generator and inverters "care about"... The VA*PF is what the battery bank will have to supply (real power).

So, for most home/cabin (and smaller) sized inverters and genset, VA=Watt rating...

For industrial sized systems, VA is typically larger than Watt ratings (also many smaller UPS systems used for computer power backup use larger VA ratings--basically it makes the UPS "look bigger" than if they rated them in Watts).

-Bill

Mixing rolls and trojan

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