trying to cycle my batteries

Re: trying to cycle my batteries

I think you misunderstood that other thread. Generally you should not cycle your batteries for the sake of cycling, it will just wear them out. There is an exception for continued very shallow cycling, not sure if that applies to you or not. Even if it does, note you would only want "a little" more not say 50% DOD. This is from the battery FAQ from our host here:

Battery life is directly related to how deep the battery is cycled each time. If a battery is discharged to 50% every day, it will last about twice as long as if it is cycled to 80% DOD. If cycled only 10% DOD, it will last about 5 times as long as one cycled to 50%. Obviously, there are some practical limitations on this - you don't usually want to have a 5 ton pile of batteries sitting there just to reduce the DOD. The most practical number to use is 50% DOD on a regular basis. This does NOT mean you cannot go to 80% once in a while. It's just that when designing a system when you have some idea of the loads, you should figure on an average DOD of around 50% for the best storage vs cost factor. Also, there is an upper limit - a battery that is continually cycled 5% or less will usually not last as long as one cycled down 10%. This happens because at very shallow cycles, the Lead Dioxide tends to build up in clumps on the the positive plates rather in an even film.

Re: trying to cycle my batteries

if i max out the controller at 60 amps how long would it take to recharge 700 amp hr does this mean I'm putting 60 amps from the panels to the batteries per hour??? not quite sure how to do the math on that one

Is basically the same as power vs energy - watts vs watt hours. Think of "amps" as current flow at a given moment in time - that is power and says nothing about how long you will be doing it for. When we talk about current over some length of time, now we are talking about energy. An amp hour is an amp for an hour, .5 amp for 2 hours, a millionth of an amp for a million hours, etc. So if you have a 60 amp supply and you want to put 700 amp hrs into a battery, it will take 11.66 hours. But that is assuming a perfectly efficient battery, so figure for every amp hour you take out, you will need to put 1.25 back in.

when I run the generator it says im putting in 22amps does that mean per hour??

if it was connected for an hour yes you would be putting in 22 amp hours. 6 minutes would be 2.2 amp hours

i just want to know how many hours i can run my pump while being able to replace it later with my panels

You will need to know what the pump draws, or in the case of a 120v pump run off an inverter, what the inverter draws. Its not so simple and best to get it right form the horses mouth and measure it directly. Depending on the pump, the nameplate current may not be very accurate, it may vary quite a bit with load/head/pressure, and you have to figure inverter losses. What will you be doing with all this water?

I hear you about wanting to utilize all the energy coming from your sources.
i do all my charge control with diversion so I can heat water. I hate seeing those electrons just sitting there......

Re: trying to cycle my batteries

solarsquirral wrote: »

when I run the generator it says im putting in 22amps does that mean per hour??

the 1 hp pump i was planning to use says 770 watts at 8 amps 120v does this mean I'm pulling 8 amps an hour to use???

sorry if these questions are redundant
thanks for any input

I think that a large part of your confusion is your mixup regarding units of measurement.
Amps tell you how much current if flowing, right now. If you multiply amps times volts you get watts, which tell you how much energy you are using per second, right now.

If you use energy at the rate of 50 watts for two hours, you have used 100 watt-hours of energy. Note that this is watt-hours, not watts per hour.

Think of it like using gas at the rate of 1 gallon per 30 miles and you multiply by the number of miles to get the number of gallons. Or in a plane using fuel at 100 gallons per hour and flying two hours uses 200 gallons.

Just as with watts and watt-hours, you have amps and amp-hours.
Your battery capacity is measured in amp-hours.

A pump that uses 8A at 120V will use 80A at 12V. And 80A for two hours means that you are draining the battery 160 amp-hours (AH) over the course of two hours.
Note also, just for grins, that 1 amp is equal to one amp-hour per hour.