Trojan batteries

[sailaboutvic]

OK, all this discussion is interesting, v. interesting (and I personally would like to thank the contributors!), but not going to draw any definite conclusions...
If we try to summarise we have:

Looks like each day your batteries under load (not open circuit) don't go down much something like 70-75% SOC, which is not bad.

After a night uesage the batteries voltage is 12.2 v that just 60% with only 70/90AH used .


Why do you keep on saying you have to replace them? I don't get it. Do they not serve their purpose at this time? OK, maybe you bought more useable Amps than you have now, but looks like they are OK for your usage, no?

Unlike many we do quite a lot of long sails some times 40/60 hours , at which point we need every AH wroth of batteries we can have not to start Gen or engine , so 125AH usable isn't enough .

Also it seems that your solar power is not enough to drive the equalisation stage. FWIW, my 600W solar on 225Ah@24V bank is happy to do it, your 400W solar on 450Ah bank is not, maybe not that surprising?
I wouldn't know which is why I am asking these question , when I tryed to equalise I separated the batteries into two bank the one being equalise had no load on , been told by others on a 12v site they managed to equalise there with the MPPT I wounding why I can't while putting in 80v for very long periods of time , or are people just making it up as there go along .

Can you use your mains charger to do this equalisation stage? I do wonder if normal main chargers can do that, have to check my Victron multiplus3000VA.

Being liveaboard, I'd try for a nice sunny day to be on shore power disconnect in the morning the trojans from the various loads you have (seem to be many!) and do
a careful recording of how solar fills up the batteries, how long is the bulk/absorption stage, what temps/Voltages are registered and go on from there (I wonder if you can do that, are your fridges/freezers also 230V?)
You may even be lucky and manage to run the equalisation with no other loads!

See above and my other posting .

Then I'd go on from there, adding (SOME) loads the next day, record and follow how things perform and regulate abs times till you reach the point that hopefully everything works.

another black art we have to manage/master...
good luck!

Vas believe me if I could get the answers from Trojan or Victron straight from the horses mouth I wouldn't be asking question here , but the fact is they sell you this stuff without enough info to work out what's best and the info they do give you like how to test the batteries with gravity test , open circuit and so on ,other tell me it's crap and mean less , when it comes to SOH
So unless you have some degree in batteries you Fu@ked and it's all try and error and if you get it wrong , the batteries go down the pan.
If it wasn't that we just frittered a freezer I probably wouldn't had notice how little Capacity there was left in them , my guess many here look at there batteries and see 70/80% soc and think they find and probably are for short periods of use and have no idea what there real SOH is .
Before fitting these batteries I thrown out my cheap Chinese MPPT and NASA BM and invested in Victron equipment probity spend over a K including the batteries ,
I then set them up to Trojan data and back that up by info to confirm its right by people on this fourm who said they had the same equipment only to find a few years later they lost most if they capacity and now suggestions of them being under changed .
It may been the case they been under charged but as far as I seen I did everything right to Trojan and Victron instructions, so why have there been under charge ?

V.

 

[vas]

After a night uesage the batteries voltage is 12.2 v that just 60% with only 70/90AH used .

not quite Vic, that's the lowest your batteries went under load. It's safe to assume that at the 12.2V moment, if you disconnected all loads, within 10mins the batteries would be up by what, .1-.15V, so you calculate the SOC after disconnecting and waiting for a while. Hence my arguing you're only down to 70% SOC, not a massive difference, but it's something.
Hope the knowledgeable will chip in with their views, but that's my understanding.

Other than that I agree with what you're saying...

V.

 

[geem]

Vic, with regard to to not being able to equalise with your solar array, this is consistent in my experience with sulphated batteries. My previous set of batteries were truck batteries. At the end of their life I was trying to equalise them. They just wouldnt do it even on my mains charger and solar. They just got hot. Your may not be this badly sulphated but on the way there.
I suspect that you have consistantly under charged your batteries over their life. Not surprising in my experience with the size of your solar array and the liveaboard lifestyle plus the poor options for battery charging provided in the old Victron firmware.
My use as a liveaboard will be little different from yours and I found the change from solar the same size as your to 720w of solar a real game changer. Properly charged batteries everyday now.
Yesterday here in Azores we had a rainy day. It took a lot longer to charge than normal but we still got fully charged by the end of the day. You cant beat a ton of solar and its cheap. We now have 2x 180w panels on the guard wires on both port and starboard sides. Just crossed from Grenada to Azores with them all deployed like that. Had about three days where it was gusting 35kts and we were rolling. Panels were fine. Port side props kissed the water on one occasion but thats all ?

 

[sailaboutvic]

Vic, with regard to to not being able to equalise with your solar array, this is consistent in my experience with sulphated batteries. My previous set of batteries were truck batteries. At the end of their life I was trying to equalise them. They just wouldnt do it even on my mains charger and solar. They just got hot. Your may not be this badly sulphated but on the way there.
I suspect that you have consistantly under charged your batteries over their life. Not surprising in my experience with the size of your solar array and the liveaboard lifestyle plus the poor options for battery charging provided in the old Victron firmware.
My use as a liveaboard will be little different from yours and I found the change from solar the same size as your to 720w of solar a real game changer. Properly charged batteries everyday now.
Yesterday here in Azores we had a rainy day. It took a lot longer to charge than normal but we still got fully charged by the end of the day. You cant beat a ton of solar and its cheap. We now have 2x 180w panels on the guard wires on both port and starboard sides. Just crossed from Grenada to Azores with them all deployed like that. Had about three days where it was gusting 35kts and we were rolling. Panels were fine. Port side props kissed the water on one occasion but thats all ?

We Also have 100w panel on each side of our guard rails which we sail with up all the time and another 2x 100x panels on the back in SS G posts we Ah e no more room to put any more , I wish I did .
The point here is , we been liveaboard for many many years much more them most here , we had less panels then , we had cheapo batteries 4x100 cheapo and only 200w panel .
The batteries where fitted and forgotten , we had as much as 4 years out of some bank three out of others .
We never bothered monitor them never needed topping up and never needed setting the cheapo Chinese MPPT to do any thing of the batteries monitor other to tell it the bank size .
After read what people wrote about Trojan and how good they are we took the view they worth the money and trouble.
How wrong we was , all these messing around only to find they last less then any cheap batteries I used in 30 years part and full time liveaboard .
I not disputing it something I may have done to shorting there live , but I have to ask are they worth the trouble and the money and the answer I come up with is NO . I won't be buying them again unless I get to the bottom of why they lived for so little time .
and no I don't think it because they being under charge , if 400w of panels and quite a lot of time the gen running using the shore power charger for a hour in the morning to help on cloudy days can't put 80/90 Amps plus what being used over that day back into the bank some thing wrong .
As for the abs time bing 3 hours as Trojan data say it's also the same for what Victron says , which is taken from start up voltage And taken into account at the worst they where only being charge to 90% of they charging rate , would that really be enough to cut their capacity by two third in less then three years .
If I sound pissed off is because I am I spend hours over the three years looking after them , setting the setting to what the manufacturer say and now people are saying there setting aren't correct. What the hell .
Again I like to thank everyone for their input , but time to move on different option by different people are getting me more confused.
Live too short . Once they die I think the ask be go back to plug and play batteries with there three years life span for a fictional of the price .

 

[GHA]

and no I don't think it because they being under charge , if 400w of panels and quite a lot of time the gen running using the shore power charger for a hour in the morning to help on cloudy days can't put 80/90 Amps plus what being used over that day back into the bank some thing wrong .

Nothing wrong, it's physics. I've 300W solar and usually down to about 80% overnight with 2 x t105, 225Ah, still takes all day to get really full charge with no float - this from extensive logging of what's going into the batteries.
Getting fully charged takes ages, if you have been going to float usually after 1.5h like you said then they were never getting fully charged - that will kill any lead acid battery. Premature flotation by the sounds of it sadly, not the fault of trojans which are as bullet proof as you'll get, but can still be killed.

 

[RobbieW]

Hi Vic, I sympathize, it's complicated. This article is long and technical, and may now be a bit old, but it's the basis of the changes I've made over time... Making Your Battery Monitor More Accurate - Marine How To

If you do go back to SLAs, don't forget to adjust the victron parameters. Sadly one of the attributes of cheap n cheerful is that far less detail on charging regimes will be available, even if you know who the manufacturer is.

 

[sailaboutvic]

Nothing wrong, it's physics. I've 300W solar and usually down to about 80% overnight with 2 x t105, 225Ah, still takes all day to get really full charge with no float - this from extensive logging of what's going into the batteries.
Getting fully charged takes ages, if you have been going to float usually after 1.5h like you said then they were never getting fully charged - that will kill any lead acid battery. Premature flotation by the sounds of it sadly, not the fault of trojans which are as bullet proof as you'll get, but can still be killed.

In which case why has it happen ? The setting are as per Trojan data .

 

[sailaboutvic]

Hi Vic, I sympathize, it's complicated. This article is long and technical, and may now be a bit old, but it's the basis of the changes I've made over time... Making Your Battery Monitor More Accurate - Marine How To

If you do go back to SLAs, don't forget to adjust the victron parameters. Sadly one of the attributes of cheap n cheerful is that far less detail on charging regimes will be available, even if you know who the manufacturer is.

Robbie as I said before , the parameters where set to Trojan date .
Before the new firmware the par where abs 14.75 float 13.5 equal 16.20 this was taken from Trojan , in which case are Trojan data wrong , many don't have a degree in batteries and can only follow what manufacturer give .

 

[lw395]

In which case why has it happen ? The setting are as per Trojan data .

The Trojan data is for bulk charging at a much higher current.

 

[geem]

The Trojan data is for bulk charging at a much higher current.

Agreed, which is why I more than doubled my solar capacity. Its a game changer

 

[sailaboutvic]

The Trojan data is for bulk charging at a much higher current.

That's bulk charge according to Trojan when I ask for Absorption charge they give 14.75v

 

[GHA]

In which case why has it happen ? The setting are as per Trojan data .

Don't know, but you said that it was often going into float after about 1.5H, that sounds like a smoking gun - regulator going to float too early - that's why I set my float to the same as absorption though with the new victron firmware that sounds like you can set it to much longer now. Don't recall trojan ever going float time, that will depend on many different factors.

 

[RobbieW]

Hi Vic, I sympathize, it's complicated. This article is long and technical, and may now be a bit old, but it's the basis of the changes I've made over time... Making Your Battery Monitor More Accurate - Marine How To

If you do go back to SLAs, don't forget to adjust the victron parameters. Sadly one of the attributes of cheap n cheerful is that far less detail on charging regimes will be available, even if you know who the manufacturer is.

I meant to add that charger manufacturers will always be conservative so they arent accused of boiling your batteries. Unfortunately that will lead to undercharging for batts in heavy use. As soon as you stray from defaults the onus is now on the owner. I doubt the data from Trojan is wrong, but trusting Victron to get the regime right for your specific battery setup is not a good assumption.

 

[lw395]

Don't know, but you said that it was often going into float after about 1.5H, that sounds like a smoking gun - regulator going to float too early - that's why I set my float to the same as absorption though with the new victron firmware that sounds like you can set it to much longer now. Don't recall trojan ever going float time, that will depend on many different factors.

No, the absorption period will be greatly shortened, because the bulk ends much later, at a higher SOC, because the volts are the same but the current is lower.
From the information given, we can't really tell whether the batteries are over charged, undercharged, damaged by some other means or actually OK.

Float time is until the load comes back on, that's what float is.

How much water have they needed?

 

[sailaboutvic]

Here to day deepset discharge 62AH
Even at a much higher abs voltage set yesterday it still only stayed in abs for 1.59 mins abs

Don't take notice of min discharge that read taken when I been testing .

 

[sailaboutvic]

How much water have they needed?

50ml each cell per month checked on the first day of every month , never missed so have been the gravity, when charge say between over 1.277 o 1.300

 

[vas]

apparently this is a good read:
https://www.victronenergy.gr/upload/documents/Book-Energy-Unlimited-EN.pdf

 

[sailinglegend420]

I not disputing it something I may have done to shorting there live , but I have to ask are they worth the trouble and the money and the answer I come up with is NO . I won't be buying them again unless I get to the bottom of why they lived for so little time .
and no I don't think it because they being under charge.....

You seem to have been asking all the right questions and done the right things - but maybe not exactly right!!! This is such a common problem where a small amount on knowledge leads to a lot of confusion and a lot of errors.

Trojan are one of the top deep cycle batteries so you either have just one faulty battery in the bank or you are doing something wrong.

Firstly your tests to measure battery capacity are flawed.

You showed 12.3v as a resting voltage - after how long? Should be about 4 hours - but very difficult to leave all loads off for 4 hours so ALWAYS do all tests with one pair of 6v batteries with no load

12.27v is 40% used - from Trojan charts - not all batteries SoC charts are the same.

The calculation of Ah can also be flawed. It first assumes that the battery monitor is wired correctly so that all loads and all charging sources are going through the shunts. This can be checked by isolating everything and checking one item at a time and see the resulting + or - amps on the BM.

Secondly the Ah taken from the bank to make this test must be the design load of you battery bank. For your 480 ah bank the load to give that capacity over 20 hours is 480/20 = 24 amps. (That should have been the load you should have used - and maintained as the voltage fell - under test 2)

If your load is much more than this the true Ah capacity of the bank will be less - maybe 10% or more. Similarly if you took out much less than 24 amps the battery capacity would appear to be much higher. This is Peukert’s theory and good BMs compensate for this on discharge - if programmed correctly. One very reliable source on internet forums - MaineSail - suggests over 90% of battery monitors or both incorrectly installed and incorrectly programmed.

So your 100 Ah used from the BM could be very wrong which is why this test can be very wrong.

The second test is the only way to accurately determine the actually capacity. But you didn’t divulge the results from this second test!!!!! I have done this several times on my Lifeline AGMs which I finally changed after 14 years when they were down to 55%. Lifeline say change at 50% - not 80% as recommended by other manufacturers.

Some thoughts on this:

When the voltage was falling you must keep the current at the design discharge level - 24 amps for you batteries not 22.5. Just keep turning on small loads - very difficult over 20 hours.

When the voltage reached 10.5v how long had you been discharging - this gives a measure of the capacity of the bank. E.g. if it reached 10.5v after 10 hours not 20 hours then the capacity of your bank would be roughly 240Ah not 480Ah.

Don’t use the Ah discharged by the BM as the capacity because of errors suggested above.

Your batteries showed variation in SG so should be equalised on shore power. Check the voltage from Trojan and the duration for equalisation. My Lifelines are 15.5v at 77F for 8 hours.

Solar equalizing settings are not true equalizing charges because solar could never reach these lengths in a normal day unless maybe all loads are disconnected to maintain a high voltage.

Use shore power - just wind up the voltage setting on the charger.

If you only discharge 20% before charging them the charge efficiency is then very low, maybe 60% or less - which means that only 60% of the Ah going into the battery is being stored. If the chargers drop down to float too early then there are not enough hours left in the day to get back to 100% fully charged with solar.

You have to clearly understand what 100% fully charged means! It’s not when a little green light comes on and says FULL, or even when the charger drops to float. The only way to tell is to measure the current going into the bank at the ABSORPTION VOLTAGE and this should be 0.5% of you bank capacity = 2.4 amps. At FLOAT voltage this will be much lower at about 0.5 amps which is too low to define as a standard. A simply way to check if the ’return amps’ going into the battery are showing full is to turn off any charger and then back on again and it will automatically go back into Absorption mode and the BM return amps should be less than 2.4 amps. Keep doing this until this figure is reached. Getting back to 100% full should be done as often as possible - at least once every two weeks!!!!!!

You also have to fully understand why only getting back to 90% will very quickly cause permanent sulfation where Lead Sulphate crystals harden on the plates and so reduce the active plates size and hence the Ah capacity. Getting back to 100% coverts the Lead Sulphate crystals back to Lead Oxide and Sulphuric Acid, which is why SG shows when a battery is fully charged. Equalisation can remove sulfation but only if done before the crystals become too hard - also after only two weeks!

So my conclusion is that you have undercharged your batteries and because you have not equalised them they have lost some of their capacity - but how much exactly?

 

[Sailfree]

Lockdown has eased here so been taking friends out to see the Dolphins!

However on return and plugging back into mains the battery charge rate starts at 14.5V and drops back and holds at13.3V.

Have made no adjustment to my Victron Pheonix Charger (am advised you can but its complex) after fitting 3 new Trojan leisure batteries (plus new cranking battery) so unless someone advised me of potential problem I will assume failed cheap Alphaline battery that swelled and leaked acid at 7yrs was just a battery failure and not a charger problem.

What's the equalization charge I have seen mentioned please.

 

[GHA]

Just found some actual data from August in the algarve, 300W solar, 2 x t105 batteries so 225Ah when new. Flat and absorption both set to 14.8v from memory. If float was set lower then little chance of getting to full charge. As it is it looks doubtful if 100% SOC would be reached these days.