[RE-wrenches] intermittent battery problem
William Miller
william at millersolar.com
Sat Oct 8 11:09:23 PDT 2011
Ron:
Have you checked the voltage on the individual batteries during a low
voltage incident? You need to know if all the batteries have equally low
voltage or if there is a specific battery with this problem.
Another possibility is a connection that is intermittently resistive. We
spend a lot of time cleaning battery connections. We don't make a
connection without wire brushing all mating surfaces. Finding a resistive
connection can be difficult. I'd like to hear how other wrenches check for
resistive connections.
William Miller
At 11:03 AM 10/8/2011, you wrote:
>Howdy Wrenches,
>
>One of my customers that lives 3 hours out in the back country is having
>an intermittent problem that I haven't encountered before. The batteries
>drop rapidly in voltage but hydrometer readings are in the green. Turning
>off the inverter and just using DC doesn't change anything. Meters on the
>Mate, Outback MX and Whisper controller are all the same so it's not a
>metering problem. On the way to bed the batteries were at 25.4, overnight
>with no loads they dropped to 22.9 then a short 15 min. charge with a
>generator brings the batteries back up and two hours later they are at
>25.8. This scenario has occurred several times and then doesn't appear for
>a day or two.
>
>It doesn't seem to be sulfation as the batteries are reading good on the
>hydrometer every time. All cells check out. The inverter doesn't seem to
>be the problem. They have a Sunfrost on a separate DC circuit. It sounds
>like an intermittent circuit problem or electronics issue. Customer has
>checked and tightened all the connections he can get at but hasn't been
>inside the components. Would appreciate any suggestions or clues before I
>make the trip.
>
>Ron Young
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