More on battery management [RE-wrenches]

[Brad Albert]

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Aloha wrentches-

If there are some of you who are attending the IEEE maybe we should all meet
for a drink good to put the names with the faces I will be at the conference
on the 9th-12th. Maybe we can meet at the hotel bar or somewherre either
Tuesday the 9th or Thursday the 11th directly after the conference like 5pm.

Let's hear a show of hands of who all is coming and when.

Aloha-

BA
Brad Albert 
Rising Sun Solar
PO Box 790807
Paia, HI 96779
P (808) 579-8287
F (808) 579-6369
brad at risingsunsolar.com



On 5/7/06 1:30 PM, "Joel Davidson" <joeldavidson at earthlink.net> wrote:

> Your free subscription is supported by today's sponsor:
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> Repair corrupt files and harmful errors - protect your PC
> Take a 2-minute PC health check-up at no charge!
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> 
> Hi Windy,
> 
> I'm working on Sunday too, but I have a few minutes here at the Honolulu
> airport waiting for the flight to Kona to attend the IEEE PV conference to get
> my mental and physical batteries recharged. Working in PV sure beats other
> kinds of work.
> 
> I like between 2.4 and 2.46 volts/cell for flooded lead antimony batteries
> with a nice equalization charge every 2 to 4 months depending on system
> configuration and use. Batteries and people thrive or die depending on how
> their electro-chemical processes function. Batteries, like living things, need
> special care and feeding in different situations. While anthropomorphizing
> batteries may seem simplistic, the human/battery comparison is an
> easy-to-understand way for users to think about the critters being fed by
> their solar panels.
> 
> Aloha,
> Joel Davidson
> 
> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Windy Dankoff <windydankoff at mac.com>
>> Sent: May 7, 2006 8:43 AM
>> To: RE-wrenches at topica.com
>> Subject: Re: More on battery management [RE-wrenches]
>> 
>> Your free subscription is supported by today's sponsor:
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------
>> Is your computer freezing up or slowing down?
>> Repair corrupt files and harmful errors - protect your PC
>> Take a 2-minute PC health check-up at no charge!
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>> 
>> Joel, Kelly,
>> 
>> The manual you refer to is written from the conventional assumption
>> of 27/7 utility-supplied power to charge batteries. It is typical of
>> the advice also given by battery manufacturers who are not
>> specifically oriented to RE. Stand-alone RE charging requires
>> different timing and voltage strategies.  Anyone who deals with
>> batteries should have this manual (and similar information), but
>> should understand that it does not fully address our situations.
>> 
>> We push the charging faster, in order to "get it while we can". Many
>> flooded battery installations suffer from max. voltage set-points of
>> about 14.2V because that's what the battery manufacturer recommended.
>> That's fine when you have full charge power from a wall socket and
>> can take a few extra hours to gently charge the batteries. In an RE
>> system it must be 14.7 or 14.8V, or else the charge current is
>> tapering off, and the battery is not fully absorbing the last hours
>> of available sunlight. Or, it is  not charging as much as possible
>> before the generator is turned off for the sake of peace and quiet or
>> economy.
>> 
>> We push battery charging beyond the conventional comfort level that
>> is optimum in a utility-charging scheme. This is a compromise, but it
>> is MUCH more desirable than attaining a 75% charge by wasting
>> precious solar power, on a day that it could have been pushed to 95%
>> by delaying the voltage regulation.
>> 
>> Windy
>> 
>>> From: "Joel  Davidson" <joeldavidson at earthlink.net>
>>> 
>>> Hello Kelly,
>>> The Battery Council International's Battery Service Manual is a
>>> good info
>>> source. Available at
>>> http://www.batterycouncil.org/BCIServiceManualForm02.pdf or for
>>> free from
>>> many battery suppliers.
>>> Joel Davidson
>> 
>> 
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> 
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