How do you keep your deep cell batteries warm?

Re: How do you keep your deep cell batteries warm?

Welcome to the forum "90cummins"
Some of us use an insulated battery box. I sometimes insulate my battery box, other Winters I get lazy and don't. The act of charging generates heat within the batteries, thus warming them. Where I live we do have some stretches of minus 20C and colder weather. Insulated, my batteries rarely drop below 0C. Uninsulated, they sometimes drop to minus 6, 7 or 8C. And that's in an unheated, uninsulated, outside shed. Since I don't regularly drain by batteries below the 80% fully charged state, I notice very little difference other than somewhat lower voltage under load, and of course higher voltage while being charged.
Cold batteries are a two sided issue. yes, their capacity drops somewhat when they're really cold, but on the other hand, their lives are extended when colder.
I'll accept slightly lower voltage for longer battery life, they're expensive to replace. At the moment mine (uninsulated so far) are at 8C (46F) and Winter is yet to come.
My opinion, unless you plan on really draining your batteries down in a way that requires all the capacity you can get out of them, don't fret about them getting cold, they won't freeze unless they are allowed to get discharged too low.
What are your "normal" Winter temps?

Re: How do you keep your deep cell batteries warm?

Location Florida Ma

Your where ?? it will get into the single digits and below -0- DegF..

Don't waste SCOTCH , it won't freeze till -20c


VT

EDIT ADD !! Florida, Really ?? USA Needs to not have 35+ Springfield towns , when i read this location /I floored myself ,till i googled MA .
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Florida,+MA/@42.6604264,-72.9868939,12z/data=!4m2!3m1!1s0x89e0c5f0e14d7c61:0x3ad298d654368f9d

My ideas are in test , & on the mountains our temps are the same.

VT

Re: How do you keep your deep cell batteries warm?

90cummins wrote: »

Yup; Florida Massachusetts's on the top of the mountain with 6.3kw of solar and excellent exposure.
Battery backup was added to utilize my solar in event of a prolonged outage which is in addition to my gas and diesel generators.

So basically your batteries are being kept charged, but sitting unused for long periods of time while waiting for a power outage?

Re: How do you keep your deep cell batteries warm?

Buy yourself a USB data temp data logger and run it through a winter, then decide based on data.