[RE-wrenches] Tri-Star MPPT

[Eric.Bentsen at schneider-electric.com]

Hi Larry,
Looking at the Rolls Solar Battery User Manual regarding corrective 
equalization, on pg. 9 line 5, it reads :
 "If severely sulfated, it may take many hours for the specific gravity to 
rise". 
 In William's case, the SG is full.  This condition where the batteries do 
not seem to be "absorbing" the charge happens
 more often with sealed batteries. Maybe it is related to the degree of 
sulfation.
Rgds
_____________________________________________________________________________________ 


Eric Bentsen  |   Schneider Electric   |  Solar Business  |   UNITED 
STATES  |   Technical Support Representative 
Phone: +(650) 351-8237 ext. 001#  |   
Email: eric.bentsen at schneider-electric.com  |   Site: 
www.schneider-electric.com/solar  |   Address: 250 South Vasco Rd., 
Livermore, CA 94551 


*** Please consider the environment before printing this e-mail 




From:
"Larry Crutcher,        Starlight Solar Power Systems" 
<larry at starlightsolar.com>
To:
RE-wrenches <re-wrenches at lists.re-wrenches.org>
Date:
07/24/2013 05:29 AM
Subject:
Re: [RE-wrenches] Tri-Star MPPT
Sent by:
re-wrenches-bounces at lists.re-wrenches.org



Jay, 

I saw that comment also. The more hardened lead sulfate becomes, the more 
resistant the battery is to the electrochemical process and therefore less 
current is drawn from the charge source. This decrease of load allows the 
charge voltage to rise more rapidly. This rapid rise is usually a first 
indicator of sulfated batteries. A healthy battery, charged at the proper 
rate, will always have a gradual, linear rise in voltage.

Just FYI, I am a hands on guy and my experience with servicing batteries 
is somewhat unique to our wrench group having designed, installed and 
serviced many hundreds of battery systems. Lead sulfation and it's cause 
and prevention has been an interest of mine because it is so prevalent. 

Larry

On Jul 23, 2013, at 9:32 PM, jay peltz <jay at asis.com> wrote:

Hi Eric,

While agree with most all your assessments, 
Can you please elaborate on the "sulfation causes the voltage not to 
climb?"

This is quite counter to what I have seen and what the battery people say?

Thanks

Jay

Peltz power

Sent from my iPad

On Jul 23, 2013, at 2:48 PM, Eric.Bentsen at schneider-electric.com wrote:


Hi William, 

 If the SG was 1.26, of course the battery voltage would increase 
quickly to >30V (which is high for warm weather, BTW). 
 It has been my experience that sulfation causes the voltage NOT to climb. 
Especially when you have a very large bank, and a 
 relatively small amount of solar. 
 Sometimes it is necessary to reduce the bank size into smaller sets to 
equalize them and recover their performance. 
This method of reducing bank size is also effective to compare performance 
and weed out a potentially bad battery. 
 Systems that have a lot of capacity, with a relatively small amount of 
charge current usually creates problems, because 
 the load demand exceeds solar production. 
 This results in batteries that operate with partial SOC, which is when 
sulfation is most prevalent. With (8) L16s, you have approx 
 800Ahrs of capacity (24V bank). It would take significantly more than 8A 
of charge current to properly care for a bank that size. 

Rgds,
_____________________________________________________________________________________ 


Eric Bentsen  |   Schneider Electric   |  Solar Business  |   UNITED 
STATES  |   Technical Support Representative 
Phone: +(650) 351-8237 ext. 001#  |   
Email: eric.bentsen at schneider-electric.com  |   Site: 
www.schneider-electric.com/solar  |   Address: 250 South Vasco Rd., 
Livermore, CA 94551 


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