Conachair
Guest
Mine are shot & I´m interested as to what´s happening inside.
History: 2 x 100Ah local brand from Canaries, guy said Si, deep cycle but I suspect new stickers on cheap car batteries. 18 months old, 14 months on mains smart charger (stirling, circa 13.6v never above 14.2v). 4 months cycling, attempted never below 75%, full recharge most days through solar\wind\engine\mains charger. Never over 14.2v. State of charge via BEP meter, shows amps in\out & resets to 100% when both amps in under 5a and voltage over 13.5v for more than 5 minutes.
Recent history. Getting worse past few days, last night was showing 80% capacity and down to under 11v for the few moments the fridge tried to turn on, about 11.7 with fridge off, very little other current draw, 0.3a.
Today had mains charger on from genny and solar (disabled regulator) until up to 14.8v, left for the afternoon under solar, maybe 2\3 hours @ +14.5v, batts bubbling away but not hot.
After charging Spec gravity average 1.15 (hydrometer calibrated to 20deg C, 30 deg C here so corrected to about 1.23??) Yesterday was about 1.14(1.22 corrected?) That should be about 75% charged? After about 45 mins disconnected showing 12.8v.
Now showing 98%, 12.4v under 4a load.
QUestions:
1: Am I right in assuming that if a cell was shorted by plate shedding then the batt voltage would be way down and obvious?
2: Does this sound like sulphation? How does that work (brief description /forums/images/graemlins/ooo.gif ) or whats actually going on inside those plastic boxes.
Much thanks in advance
History: 2 x 100Ah local brand from Canaries, guy said Si, deep cycle but I suspect new stickers on cheap car batteries. 18 months old, 14 months on mains smart charger (stirling, circa 13.6v never above 14.2v). 4 months cycling, attempted never below 75%, full recharge most days through solar\wind\engine\mains charger. Never over 14.2v. State of charge via BEP meter, shows amps in\out & resets to 100% when both amps in under 5a and voltage over 13.5v for more than 5 minutes.
Recent history. Getting worse past few days, last night was showing 80% capacity and down to under 11v for the few moments the fridge tried to turn on, about 11.7 with fridge off, very little other current draw, 0.3a.
Today had mains charger on from genny and solar (disabled regulator) until up to 14.8v, left for the afternoon under solar, maybe 2\3 hours @ +14.5v, batts bubbling away but not hot.
After charging Spec gravity average 1.15 (hydrometer calibrated to 20deg C, 30 deg C here so corrected to about 1.23??) Yesterday was about 1.14(1.22 corrected?) That should be about 75% charged? After about 45 mins disconnected showing 12.8v.
Now showing 98%, 12.4v under 4a load.
QUestions:
1: Am I right in assuming that if a cell was shorted by plate shedding then the batt voltage would be way down and obvious?
2: Does this sound like sulphation? How does that work (brief description /forums/images/graemlins/ooo.gif ) or whats actually going on inside those plastic boxes.
Much thanks in advance