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what's your battery bank level at 8am?


jenevers

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I'm not quite sure what my charger is telling me, but the amp reading is 0.8, and volts are 13.6.  I only have 3 led lights on and the charger is on float. The charger rarely gets above reading 4.0 amps. The combined draw of all five saloon lights is only about 1.5 amps. I gather the 0.8 amps is how much I'm using. I'd guess it's reading 0.0 amps at 8.00am.and something like 13.4v.

 

 

Edited by Higgs
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2 hours ago, jenevers said:

From fully charged (12.7v) at midnight, mine is 12.4v at 8am with just the fridge running overnight.

Firstly 12.7 volts is showing that you battery is not fully charged.

 

Your figures would suggest you have 1 very poorly battery.

 

If the only thing using 12v is the fridge then at worst it is possibly using 10 Ah in 8 hours. (My fridge uses 30Ah per day of which most is during the day with opening the door etc. Night time it rarely comes on at all)

 

From 12.7 volts to 12.4 volts means your battery has used (roughly) 25% of its capacity so you battery capacity is around 31Ah - instead of ??? (110Ah battery ?)

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5 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

Firstly 12.7 volts is showing that you battery is not fully charged.

 

Your figures would suggest you have 1 very poorly battery.

 

If the only thing using 12v is the fridge then at worst it is possibly using 10 Ah in 8 hours. (My fridge uses 30Ah per day of which most is during the day with opening the door etc. Night time it rarely comes on at all)

 

From 12.7 volts to 12.4 volts means your battery has used (roughly) 25% of its capacity so you battery capacity is around 31Ah - instead of ??? (110Ah battery ?)

I  disagree - 12.7 volts at midnight suggest to me the batteries were well charged and are close to fully chrged at mifnight.

 

I do agree with the rest - sulphated batteries so low on capacity.

 

 

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1 minute ago, Tony Brooks said:

I  disagree - 12.7 volts at midnight suggest to me the batteries were well charged and are close to fully chrged at mifnight.

Yes - I accept that - it all depends on where and when we take our 'full reading'.

 

During the Summer at Midnight I may well still be showing 12.8 / 12.9 with some surface charge from some 'late solar' input.

If there has been no 'input' for a couple of hours, then I'd agree that 12.7 is likely close to fully charged.

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1 hour ago, Higgs said:

 

I'm not quite sure what my charger is telling me, but the amp reading is 0.8, and volts are 13.6.  I only have 3 led lights on and the charger is on float. The charger rarely gets above reading 4.0 amps. The combined draw of all five saloon lights is only about 1.5 amps. I gather the 0.8 amps is how much I'm using. I'd guess it's reading 0.0 amps at 8.00am.and something like 13.4v.

 

 

 

That suggest to me that your charger has gone into float (13.6 volts). Any currents you may see relating to fully charged batteries are only valid at 14.2 plus volts. The lower the charging voltage the lower the current that can be pushed into batteries at any given state of charge.

 

I suspect your charger is spending nearly all the time on float. Reset it by turning it off, pause, then on again. Once it restarts I think you will find a higher charging voltage and a higher charging current.

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3 minutes ago, Tony Brooks said:

 

That suggest to me that your charger has gone into float (13.6 volts). Any currents you may see relating to fully charged batteries are only valid at 14.2 plus volts. The lower the charging voltage the lower the current that can be pushed into batteries at any given state of charge.

 

I suspect your charger is spending nearly all the time on float. Reset it by turning it off, pause, then on again. Once it restarts I think you will find a higher charging voltage and a higher charging current.

 

I will do that - switch off and on. The only time the fan came on was at the first switch on, but I really don't use that much power from the batteries. My problem was, I could never maintain a system of looking after the batteries, before I very recently installed this 40amp Sterling Pro Charge Ultra. It's overkill at the moment, but I've got plans to give it more work in the near future. 

 

 

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20 hours ago, Alan de Enfield said:

Firstly 12.7 volts is showing that you battery is not fully charged.

 

Your figures would suggest you have 1 very poorly battery.

 

If the only thing using 12v is the fridge then at worst it is possibly using 10 Ah in 8 hours. (My fridge uses 30Ah per day of which most is during the day with opening the door etc. Night time it rarely comes on at all)

 

From 12.7 volts to 12.4 volts means your battery has used (roughly) 25% of its capacity so you battery capacity is around 31Ah - instead of ??? (110Ah battery ?)

All this talk of voltage is rubbish unless you specify that nothing is drawing power at the time of measurement. Only Rob above mentions that. 

I agree the capacity sounds down but if the 12.7V is a fully rested voltage and the 12.4 V is the voltage with a fridge compressor on drawing 5A then that 12.4V could be 12.6V so everything else fine. I doubt however it is ...but it shows that there is a lack of understanding. How many of the other respondents have got their inverters on or solar panels connected?

When we quote voltages, please confirm if these are rested voltages otherwise the readers are just guessing.

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2 hours ago, Dr Bob said:

All this talk of voltage is rubbish unless you specify that nothing is drawing power at the time of measurement. Only Rob above mentions that. 

I agree the capacity sounds down but if the 12.7V is a fully rested voltage and the 12.4 V is the voltage with a fridge compressor on drawing 5A then that 12.4V could be 12.6V so everything else fine. I doubt however it is ...but it shows that there is a lack of understanding. How many of the other respondents have got their inverters on or solar panels connected?

When we quote voltages, please confirm if these are rested voltages otherwise the readers are just guessing.

spot on, my 12.7v at 10pm last night dropped to 12.5v whilst fridge was running but went back to 12.7v when  compressor stopped.

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About 13.2 after the first night, 13.05 after the second consecutive night with no charging, and about 12.9 after the third night with no charging. Ah,  LiFePO4, how do I love you? Let me count the ways!

 

MP.

 

Edited by MoominPapa
Phosphate, not polonium.
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6 hours ago, WotEver said:

Hence the value of SmartGauge. 

But only when its still dark ;)

 

 

 

 

Or all charging sources are switched off.

 

 

 

 

Even then its only a percentage of capacity and that capacity could be SFA.

 

 

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