Voltage but no current

QBhoy said:
Hi. On these, there is a huge current draw, as you’ve mentioned. But I’d be tempted to put a meter across the huge in line fuse and solonoid to see what’s happening. Or even run a battery direct onto the windlass side of any switch, fuse or solonoid gear.
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Trying to run the windlass at the battery doesn't work, and replacing the solenoid doesn't work.
 
How sure are you that the charging circuits are functioning correctly. Last year my sloar panel was faulty and it flattened my batteries so that I thought they were duds. They have been working fine since.
My alternator also gave up at the same time so I was more sure that the batteries were all toast.
 
pandos said:
How sure are you that the charging circuits are functioning correctly. Last year my sloar panel was faulty and it flattened my batteries so that I thought they were duds. They have been working fine since.
My alternator also gave up at the same time so I was more sure that the batteries were all toast.
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I can watch the amps going in from the panels, alternator, wind-gen and hydro-gen.
 
Do you have any tappings on the batteries. If more than one battery are all take offs from the same two terminals? That is to say I take it that the two batteries are connected in parallel and that you are only using one pair of terminals to 'extract' power? It is possible to get the voltage out of sync with the amperage in a battery. I have seen it done were two 24v ( irrelevant) batteries in parallel powered a machine. Operating errors made it so that only one of the batteries were changed when depleted. So the changed battery was then put on charge for the next change whereas the other depleted battery of the original pair was matched with a fully charged battery which carried most of the work until the pair were put on charge over night as a pair. Now as the charger was voltage controlled it would bring the pair slowly up to voltage as normal. This scenario repeated eventually rendered the neglected battery charged but empty and the only resolution was to split it from a pair and charge it in isolation. You could generate a similar situation if you had two batteries in parallel but tapped into the pair and effectively used just one for additional work.
 
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ean_p said:
Do you have any tappings on the batteries. If more than one battery are all take offs from the same two terminals? That is to say I take it that the two batteries are connected in parallel and that you are only using one pair of terminals to 'extract' power? It is possible to get the voltage out of sync with the amperage in a battery. I have seen it done were two 24v ( irrelevant) batteries in parallel powered a machine. Operating errors made it so that only one of the batteries were changed when depleted. So the changed battery was then put on charge for the next change whereas the other depleted battery of the original pair was matched with a fully charged battery which carried most of the work until the pair were put on charge over night as a pair. Now as the charger was voltage controlled it would bring the pair slowly up to voltage as normal. This scenario repeated eventually rendered the neglected battery charged but empty and the only resolution was to split it from a pair and charge it in isolation. You could generate a similar situation if you had two batteries in parallel but tapped into the pair and effectively used just one for additional work.
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Interesting. I have always assumed that if the batteries are wired in parallel, they will be charged and discharged together. Is there something I have missed?
 
roaringgirl said:
Interesting. I have always assumed that if the batteries are wired in parallel, they will be charged and discharged together. Is there something I have missed?
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There's parallel and parallel. A bank of batteries where the loads are connected to the + and - of the same battery will have a slight resistance between the batteries, so the one the loads are connected to will do slightly more work and the one at the other end of the bank slightly less. Not good over time. Connect the + of the load (and charge) to one end of the bank and the - to the other, and all the batteries do the same work, so none is overworked and they'll last longer.
 
Daydream believer said:
Are you sure? The review says that it cannot be used on a leisure battery.
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The ANCEL BA101 can be used to test a wide range of 12V batteries including Starting, Lighting, and Ignition (SLI), Deep Cycled and Marine (Flooded), VRLA or Maintenance Free (MF), Sealed Maintenance Free (SMF), Absorption Glass Mat (AGM), and GEL cell. The major battery standards JIS, SAE, EN, DIN, and IEC are supported.
 
roaringgirl said:
I can watch the amps going in from the panels, alternator, wind-gen and hydro-gen.
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I don't know how sophisticated your monitoring is but I'd try disconnecting everything from one battery.

Put some charge into it from one source,leave it for a while and see how it behaves.

My AGMs are now 16 years old and have been abused and destined for the bin several times.....but on each ocassion I discovered the charge was not actually getting into the batteries despite the indications on the BM (basic NASA).
 
ChromeDome said:
I'd disconnect the battery, charge it completely with a capable charger that can do AGM, then leave the battery a rest for some hours and load test it.

Would tell if the battery is ok without factoring other stuff in.
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The batteries are in disgrace for many reasons, 400Ah of LiFePO4 arriving on Saturday. I'm hoping the windlass starts working once they are installed.
 
roaringgirl said:
I can see the input from each of 4 MPPTs and at the BMV. Everything goes through the BMV shunt and the BMV reported voltage matches the voltage at the terminals and reported on each of the MPPTs.
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roaringgirl said:
The batteries are in disgrace for many reasons, 400Ah of LiFePO4 arriving on Saturday. I'm hoping the windlass starts working once they are installed.
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It took me many weeks to sort my windlass out with similar symptoms and checks to you. I knew my batteries were OK but still got clicks but no drive even on an empty windlass.. Replaced wires, connections, solenoids and dismantled the control switch to clean all terminals. An electrical friend examined it, dismantled the control switch and diagnosed the quality of my terminal cleaning was at fault. Worked faultlessly after that. Good learning for me.
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I replaced the batteries today. When I connected it all up... the behaviour was the same, but because I moved the wiring around, I noticed that everything downstream of a particular wire was no longer functioning after the test. I realised that this wire had been used (through necessity) in the tests i had done at the battery box too. I made up a new wire and replaced it - I now have a working windlass - hurray!
 
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