[RE-wrenches] intermittent battery problem; AH Metering is Important

[Larry Crutcher, Starlight Solar Power Systems]

Hello Ron,

To me, battery AH monitoring is a vitally important component when designing an off grid RE system. There are 10's of thousands of reasons why, aka customers that have unwittingly ruined batteries. It is not a luxury item; for a tiny percentage of the system cost you can add this invaluable tool. Think of how your problem solving would be enhanced if this customer told you, for instance, the bank was down 700AH. 

Battery Wrenches well know that sometimes an event will occur where batteries can be severely discharged in just a day. A user may think everything is OK because the inverter still works. AH metering will expose these events and will keep the user well informed.

Larry Crutcher
Starlight Solar Power Systems



On Oct 8, 2011, at 11:31 AM, Ron Young wrote:

> There is no amp hour meter in the system. The dump load on the Whisper sounds like a possibility... Batteries are 4ks21 Surrettes with an 1100 a/h rating @20hr rate and should have plenty of life left in them. They have been eq'd on a regular basis and maintenance has been good. Alas the customer doesn't own a multimeter so can't check the individual battery voltages but has checked each cell with tubular hydrometer and tell me that all cells are in the green. They may misread a hydrometer but the colour is easy to see so I'm pretty sure they don't have a bad cell.
> 
> Ron