[RE-wrenches] HuP Conundrum

[Starlight Solar Power Systems]

No hydrometer, no log book, many cells at different SG and probably no battery monitor = neglect, wasted resources and, as you said, unbelievably expensive consequence. I hope you can communicate to the customer that this was his fault and not the battery maker. 

Larry



On Dec 17, 2015, at 8:29 AM, Luke Christy <sgsrenewables at gmail.com> wrote:

Thanks Guys, for the feedback. 

I reduced the system to one string when I was on site, and it is maintaining, though the remaining "good" batteries had a lot of variance in the SG between cells.

I don't think the cells in these particular batteries are removable (at least not by me), as the interconnections are welded and it does not look like it would be easy to pull them out of the case anyway. As Jay pointed out, even if that were possible, replacing the cells with new ones seems like throwing away money.

The charge parameters were set kind of low ~58V Bulk and 61V EQ.

I know the homeowner has not been using SG to equalize, as he doesn't even have a way to check the SG period.

Tommy Penson was kind enough to contact me off-list, and his recommendation was to increase the charge parameters and spend some time trying to bring the bad cells back up with careful charging and longer EQ cycles.  Seems like that is worth doing even if it's not successful, considering the expensive alternative.

-Luke