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john61ct · 01-08-2017, 11:27

Quote:

Originally Posted by beirutsailor

Flooded are expensive if you do serious cruising without engine and drain the batteries, notably in night time sailing. After 20 times they are dead. AGM an GEL 400 - 1000 times. But need good regulator.

No one should ever get in a situation where their Bank is actually drained down below 50%.

Getting down to 80% DoD should be only in a very rare emergency, and well below that will greatly shorten the lifespan of any lead chemistry.

So even if some batts can in theory handle it better than FLA - and **none** will tolerate a full drain hundreds of cycles - that is not IMO a relevant criterion, any more than "batt X can handle being fully submerged upside down".

john61ct · 01-08-2017, 11:40

Quote:

Originally Posted by a64pilot

I'll try one last time to see if I can get through, I'm really hard headed.

It is not that my array can't provide more power than I'm using, it can easily. I'm not using more than 300ish AH in a 24 hour period.

If I leave myself on Solar my batteries will never go dead, they will cycle daily likely between 70ish percent to 90ish. However everything will work fine and it will look as everything is fine, cause it is, the bank is not walking down in charge so that after a week or so it's dead, the array is replenishing all the power that is used.

However due to the time required to trickle charge that last few percent of charge in, they are never really getting to a 100% charged state.

The morning hour or so generator run is not to ram more amps into the battery bank, it is to extend charging time by one hour so that the bank gets the time that it takes to dribble in the last few percent of charge every so often. You could just as easily run the generator in the late afternoon into early night, just it won't be loaded much so maybe you would want to heat water or run an AC or something.

And one more time, last attempt I promise, I am informing you that **you are mistaken**.

You should be able to run your SoC from whatever depleted state up to 85% in an hour or maybe two by say 9 or 10am.

Your solar should be able to get that last 15% in, up to 100% Full in 4-5 hours, worst case 6.

If it is unable to do that then something is wrong. And that is very likely, **almost all** charge sources ship out of the box with programming so that the charge transitions from Absorb to Float **way** too early.

You need to accurately measure and program the SC (any charge source) so it keeps voltage high right up until current fall to just a few, say 3A.

One shortcut with solar is to just keep it going at Absorb voltage until sunset.

Yes this is not easy, for noobs. But you are not that, you are gaining the knowledge to easily be able to get there! You just have some mistaken defeatist beliefs holding you back, and justify the situation by just saying "oh well, not important, I'll just buy a new bank every five years", when in fact you could get 2-3x the lifetime with some more effort, maybe just a bit of hardware investment.

john61ct · 01-08-2017, 11:44

Quote:

Originally Posted by a64pilot

The morning hour or so generator run is not to ram more amps into the battery bank, it is to extend charging time by one hour so that the bank gets the time that it takes to dribble in the last few percent of charge every so often. You could just as easily run the generator in the late afternoon into early night, just it won't be loaded much so maybe you would want to heat water or run an AC or something.

Key mistake there.

Yes the morning run is to get as many AH per minute into the bank while SoC is low.

If you're running genset PM anyway fine, but never do so for the purpose of charging when the bank is already nearly full total waste of fuel an runtime.

Get the bank up as full as needed in the AM, so that solar will easily get the bank to 100% Full long before the cocktail hour.

Really, it is entirely do-able.

**skipmac** · 01-08-2017, 12:28

Quote:

Originally Posted by john61ct

No one should ever get in a situation where their Bank is actually drained down below 50%.

Getting down to 80% DoD should be only in a very rare emergency, and well below that will greatly shorten the lifespan of any lead chemistry.

So even if some batts can in theory handle it better than FLA - and **none** will tolerate a full drain hundreds of cycles - that is not IMO a relevant criterion, any more than "batt X can handle being fully submerged upside down".

I would agree that one should try to not discharge below 50% but below 80% only in an emergency??? Many, many cruisers that are living on the hook cycle from 50% to 80% on a day to day basis and get very good battery life. Typically they do bring the bank up to 100% and/or equalize as often as possible. The reason for the 50-80 is of course because that range is where it's fastest and easiest to pump in the most charge in the least time. For good quality, deep cycle FLA batteries that is not a killer regimen.

True they would last longer if you ran from 80% to 100% but that isn't always practical or even possible for off the grid cruisers. For that matter, running between 95% to 100% would be even better but again, not practical and wouldn't give one many usable amp hours from the bank.

john61ct · 01-08-2017, 12:30

Quote:

Originally Posted by skipmac

I would agree that one should try to not discharge below 50% but below 80% only in an emergency???

I said (meant) 80% DoD, which is 20% SoC

sailorboy1 · 01-08-2017, 12:30

:dead horsebeat:

once someones says the below it is pretty much a waste of time to continue a discussion on charging cruiser battery banks

"A 10,000 watt Solar array won't get your battery bank to fully charged most of the time year round, unless maybe you live on the equator."

I said I quit because I don't know anything. The people on the dock this morning were all surprised to see me out this morning screaming at my 290W solar panel "You lying piece of crap!"

sailorboy1 · 01-08-2017, 12:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by skipmac

I would agree that one should try to not discharge below 50% but below 80% only in an emergency??? Many, many cruisers that are living on the hook cycle from 50% to 80% on a day to day basis and get very good battery life.

Hell I have been impressed with the number of cruisers I have met that don't know anything about their batteries really and don't do anything except run the engine when the batteries get to less than 11.5V. They run the engine for 1-2 hours and say the batteries are charged.

The thing is that they seem to get 80% as much life from their batteries as us amp Nazis.

leftbrainstuff · 01-08-2017, 12:45

Wet cell lead acid are reliable and cost effective. But you meed to keep them wet. Lack of maintenance and poor charge management will kill them quick.

We're replacing our 10 year old trojans with oasis firefly agms. They are on backorder with long delays. Looks like they have solved the quality problems of the early batches.

We're adding 900W of solar to the arch and another 300W to the dodger. We'll be heating hot water direct from solar.

Lithium ion are the other option. There are some good all electric cat installs with big solar arrays. Expensive.

**a64pilot** · 01-08-2017, 13:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by sailorboy1

The thing is that they seem to get 80% as much life from their batteries as us amp Nazis.

With the FLA batteries they do, FLA are very tolerant of PSOC, maybe why it's the battery of choice for golf carts, floor sweepers and forklifts etc.
However a Lifeline AGM won't tolerate it nearly as well, reason way back at the beginning of this thread why I said go with golf cart FLA batteries.
Their AGM batteries require special care and are not in my opinion as good a battery for a cruiser living away from shorepower as a FLA battery is.
There is I think a lot of logic in what you said a while back, buy inexpensive good batteries, take decent care of them and treat them as an expensive item, not worth obsessing over them.

If you back out the cost of my AGM bank along with the items to take special care of them, likely you could buy several Sams club banks, the pay back is likely never.
However all the "stuff" I bought was bought with the idea of being Life-Po friendly.

What you refuse to see is that there is around 4.5 maybe 5 hours average of Solar hours a yr in Fl, and it takes up to 7 hours to fully recharge a Lifeline AGM bank. You can shorten that some with a large charge source, but not to below 4.5 hours, even if the source was infinitely large, cause the bank will only accept what it can, no more.

https://www.wholesalesolar.com/solar...n-hours-us-map

ranger58sb · 01-08-2017, 13:21

Quote:

Originally Posted by a64pilot

What you refuse to see is that there is around 4.5 maybe 5 hours average of Solar hours a yr in Fl, and it takes up to 7 hours to fully recharge a Lifeline AGM bank. You can shorten that some with a large charge source, but not to below 4.5 hours, even if the source was infinitely large, cause the bank will only accept what it can, no more.

Are you meaning solar-only?

No morning shot of genset/charger?

-Chris

john61ct · 01-08-2017, 13:41

Quote:

Originally Posted by sailorboy1

The thing is that they seem to get 80% as much life from their batteries as us amp Nazis.

There are a lot of factors involved, not least of which is many people keep the bank way too long.

But even with FLA, other coddling beibg equal, just getting to 100% Full nearly every cycle vs PSOC abuse will easily add many years to a quality bank's life.

Cheapest GC might only make one years' difference, so YMMV, especially if this stuff izn't fun for you.

My personal approach is even with a cheap bank, do what I can to get maximum life, so I know I "qualify" to buy an expensive bank next time around. And I enjoy the challenge.

Nazi is a pretty offensive slur to throw around in this context, certainly for my personal family history.

john61ct · 01-08-2017, 13:46

Quote:

Originally Posted by a64pilot

there is around 4.5 maybe 5 hours average of Solar hours a yr in Fl, and it takes up to 7 hours to fully recharge a Lifeline AGM bank.

Again, if you're starting your "solar morning" at 85%, 4-5 hours is **plenty** to get to 100%, as long as your SC is quality and programmed correctly to stay at Absorb.

Easier with Lifeline AGM than FLA with its much lower CAR.

**a64pilot** · 01-08-2017, 13:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by ranger42c

Are you meaning solar-only?

No morning shot of genset/charger?

-Chris

Yes, an hour in the morning of generator or main engine will of course let the Solar get me fully charged, cause it adds an hour to the total charge time if done early enough.

Now come Winter I assume it's going to be longer than an hour, I should know in a few months.

My plan is two generator runs a week to get the bank to 100% and equalize once a month, with telephone conversations with Justin Goodbar, that ought to give me a decent bank life, what he said was I'll talk to you in five years.