Bill With 4 parallel strings at 6 years you surely will have some bad cells. I would let the bank sit (with no load or charge) for at least 8 hours, or if you can 24 hours and simply do a voltage check. You can't get a good 6 volt battery below 6 volts (at rest) so eliminate the 4 lowest voltage batteries and EQ the other 3 strings individually (check voltage after to make sure that they did equalize) all batteries should now be equal voltage, if not, wait and EQ again.
You can call me Toll Free 888-895-8179 with questions. Kind regards Tom Duffy Senior Solar Design Engineer [Real-logo-X-195] E-Mail: t...@thesolar.biz Panama Office: 507-6126-1253 Direct Toll Free: 888-503-6772 International: 575-539-2111 SKYPE Address: thesolarbiz Although no trees were killed in the sending of this message, a large number of electrons were terribly inconvenienced. Confidentiality Notice: This message including any attachments is for the sole use of the intended recipient and may contain confidential and privileged information. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure or distribution is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender and delete any copies of this message. From: re-wrenches-boun...@lists.re-wrenches.org [mailto:re-wrenches-boun...@lists.re-wrenches.org] On Behalf Of Tump Sent: Thursday, December 19, 2013 6:52 AM To: RE-wrenches Subject: Re: [RE-wrenches] Sick pack What is the Spg (use a good refractometer)of each cell 1.11?1.15? that temp is not to hi especially w/ the temp comp. Charging w/ the unit in bulk, the inverter will see voltage rise quickly and decide that they are charged. disconnect the batteries and check as individual units Eq at high voltage `32 v and a low charge rate 10 amps, watch the temp Spg . I would suggest that if at all possible remove 2 sets and eq from the grid for ~week on /off.DO use a temp sensor and watch the spg. See Surrette's tech bulletin re/ highly sulfated batteries. www.surrette.com<http://www.surrette.com>. Anything over 2 strings will cause a headache, BUT thats more the norm w/ the cheep off grid, I'm going to manage my gen run time kinda of folks! On Dec 19, 2013, at 1:28 AM, frenergy wrote: Gentlemen and women, I have been called in to deal with a pack of 16 (4 strings of 4 for 24V), L-16s, 6 years old. She is having to run her generator 2 times a day. Here in N.E. CA. its been cold, mostly clear, little wind. Her inputs are about 1 KW of PV, and small wind machine and of course a serious generator. Cables and terminals looked clean, were tight. The bulk setting on the Trace 4024 was 28.0 V for 2 hrs with RTS, however, she would manually turn off the generator soon after it reached 28V. Recipe for suphation. Rather than getting into too much detail, here's my quandary. When I fired up the generator, the input amps in each of the 4 strings were.... string #1:29A, 2:34 A, 3:25 A, 4: 13 A. A survey of IR temps throughout the pack gave temps ranging from 63 to 92 degrees. The highest temps were in the string pulling highest amps. In trying to find shorted/failed and/or sulphated cells which data are most relevant? Temps, amp draw during charge, disconnect strings from each other and check volts of each 6 volt batt?, active bubbling? ...all the above? I'm thinking I should have (1) checked the amp draw with batts under load/genny off in each string AND (2) check amps between strings with the pack at rest, no input or output. I would love to EQ the pack but with a temp already in the 90's and uneven currents in the strings I don't want to risk too high of temp or worse, a runaway situation and fire. I'm thinking I'd like to yank a few bad batts and run on 3 strings and then carefully EQ. I appreciate any insights. Thanks in advance, Bill <FRS_working_logo.jpg> _______________________________________________ List sponsored by Home Power magazine List Address: RE-wrenches@lists.re-wrenches.org<mailto:RE-wrenches@lists.re-wrenches.org> Change email address & settings: http://lists.re-wrenches.org/options.cgi/re-wrenches-re-wrenches.org List-Archive: http://lists.re-wrenches.org/pipermail/re-wrenches-re-wrenches.org List rules & etiquette: www.re-wrenches.org/etiquette.htm<http://www.re-wrenches.org/etiquette.htm> Check out participant bios: www.members.re-wrenches.org<http://www.members.re-wrenches.org> t...@swnl.net<blocked::mailto:t...@swnl.net%22%20%5Co%20%22blocked::mailto:t...@swnl.net> www.SWNL.net<blocked::http://www.swnl.net/%22%20%5Co%20%22blocked::http://www.swnl.net/> Solarwinds Northernlights Serving Mid Coast Maine & Northern California 207-832-7574 Cl. 610-517-8401 Blair "TUMP" May ******** MAINE'S CHARTER ******** NABCEP "Certified PV Installer" ******** MAINE'S CHARTER ******** Trace Xantrex "Certified" Dealer / Installer"
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