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what's your battery bank level at 8am?


jenevers

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15 minutes ago, alyceloka said:

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.

See post 9.

 

Not quiet what you are using, a very small amount will be self discharge from the battery and perhaps a bit more actual charge going into the battery.

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4 hours ago, Rickent said:

my batteries were 12.6 at 6am yesterday morning, inverter on with fridge running overnight.

Much the same as mine Smartgauge showed 95%

Having said that they were 12.1v at 8 o'clock with the immersion on, recovered by 08.15 to 12.5v ;)

 

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4 hours ago, Rickent said:

my batteries were 12.6 at 6am yesterday morning, inverter on with fridge running overnight.

As I am never up at 6am to look I wait another 3 hours and they are normally 25 or 25.1 that is after the engine stopped about 3pm and we had had the coffee machine on and several cups of tea made with water from an electric kettle, the 18 year old LEC 240 volt fridge and the Mastervolt inverter running 

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1 hour ago, Loddon said:

Much the same as mine Smartgauge showed 95%

Having said that they were 12.1v at 8 o'clock with the immersion on, recovered by 08.15 to 12.5v ;)

 

I have just taken a new mooring without electric hook up, my batteries are Exide hyhbrid marine batteries, they are 5 years old now but have had an extremely easy life up to now with 680w of solar keeping them topped up all summer, and battery charger plugged in during the winter.

I will find out soon enough how good they are and how quickly I can bugger them up.

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2 hours ago, Loddon said:

What?  You don't have to get up in the night like the rest of us, sometimes its twice :(

 

That's not really getting up though. Its fine at about 3 cus you can go straight back to sleep, the 6 one is not so good cus its light so its sort of morning so harder to get back to sleep. I find not drinking largely solves the problem but its a price i'm not willing to pay.

 

..............Dave

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1 minute ago, dmr said:

That's not really getting up though. Its fine at about 3 cus you can go straight back to sleep, the 6 one is not so good cus its light so its sort of morning so harder to get back to sleep. I find not drinking largely solves the problem but its a price i'm not willing to pay.

 

The traditional solution is to start your drinking earlier in the day - 10am seems popular - and don't drink in the evening so you're not up all night weeing. ;)

 

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Just now, TheBiscuits said:

 

The traditional solution is to start your drinking earlier in the day - 10am seems popular - and don't drink in the evening so you're not up all night weeing. ;)

 

That's daft. We used to have a no beer before 8 rule buts that slipped to 6 and was closer to 5 today. My wife and I are not really compatible, she likes an early evening beer, about 6 till 8, I prefer to wait till 9:30 and drink till chucking out time, the bad compromise is to start at 6 and not stop till closing time, keeps us both happy. Some pubs don't shut till 1:30 and thats bad. All this lock down stuff has been mostly good for us.  Well maybe good for Gillie, she drinks 6 till 8 then goes to bed, I stay up till 1 or so trying not to drink but failing.

 

................Dave

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45 minutes ago, dmr said:

That's daft. We used to have a no beer before 8 rule buts that slipped to 6 and was closer to 5 today. My wife and I are not really compatible, she likes an early evening beer, about 6 till 8, I prefer to wait till 9:30 and drink till chucking out time, the bad compromise is to start at 6 and not stop till closing time, keeps us both happy. Some pubs don't shut till 1:30 and thats bad. All this lock down stuff has been mostly good for us.  Well maybe good for Gillie, she drinks 6 till 8 then goes to bed, I stay up till 1 or so trying not to drink but failing.

 

................Dave

Which of all those times are am and which are pm? 

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8 minutes ago, Keeping Up said:

Which of all those times are am and which are pm? 

Drinking is strictly a pm thing, am drinking really is the slippery slope, but if you do enough pm drinking am does not realy exist.

A fond memory was waking up at 4am during the second day of the BCN challenge and having a glass of whisky thrust into my hand, dangerous but lovely.

 

..............Dave

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Battery charger has been off for 'days'

 

07:57 this morning, solar showing 0v (Zero) going to batteries, 12v fridge and 220v freezer have been running all night*.

 

Multimeter shows 12.8v at the battery (no load)

 

* They rarely actually run, maybe 'kick in' once or twice between about 11pm and 7am.

Edited by Alan de Enfield
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On 17/09/2020 at 13:50, 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.

 

 

Going to the boat to check the batteries soon. I suppose I have to disconnect them all to test each one individually?

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On 20/09/2020 at 00:12, alyceloka said:

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. omegle

How many of the other respondents have got their inverters on or solar panels connected

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7 minutes ago, alyceloka said:

How many of the other respondents have got their inverters on or solar panels connected

Me.

10 hours ago, Alan de Enfield said:

Battery charger has been off for 'days'

 

07:57 this morning, solar showing 0v (Zero) going to batteries, 12v fridge and 220v freezer have been running all night*.

 

Multimeter shows 12.8v at the battery (no load)

 

* They rarely actually run, maybe 'kick in' once or twice between about 11pm and 7am.

 

8 minutes ago, alyceloka said:

How many of the other respondents have got their inverters on or solar panels connected

 

Me !!!

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32 minutes ago, alyceloka said:

How many of the other respondents have got their inverters on or solar panels connected

Me.

Solar output diddly squat at that time

Inverter draws the square root of sod all when in standby so battery voltage is the same whether on or off.

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1 hour ago, jenevers said:

Volt meter.

Not easy to test and it could take a long time.

When we were handed over our new boat, it came with a duff set of batteries. Likely during fit out the inverter was left on with no shore power for a week so fully discharging the cheapo batteries fitted. Once we commenced our delivery trip home, the lack of capacity became obvious.

Checked it very crudely, but very informatively, by putting a draw of 15A on (via the inverter, all the lights, the TV, the satellite etc etc but no fridge as that would move the 15A up/down when the compressor kicked in). I then disconnected 3 of the 4 LA's and put a rubber cap over the +ve terminals disconnected so only one battery was feeding the inverter/domestics. I monitored the voltage in the connected battery for 10 mins and plotted the decay in voltage plus also the recovery in voltage of the 3 disconnected batteries. I then connected up the next battery, disconnected the other 3 and repeated the voltage measurements. Repeat for batteries 3 &4.

The results showed that all 4 batteries were performing the same! I thought from the lack of capacity that there would be one shorted battery. How can 4 new batteries be that bad? The drop in voltage in 10 mins under a 15A load on a 110Ahr battery confirmed a lack of capacity. Cant remember the exact details but it was something like 12.00V dropping to 11.80V (cant find my notes so dont moan if the numbers are wrong). Anywho, from that data I estimated the bank were around 150Ahrs total capacity rather than 440Ahrs. It took the company 3 days to come out with replacements (AGMs this time!) and in that time I confirmed the capacity of around 150Ahrs by running them down overnight and checking the rested voltage vs the Ahrs used.

That says to me that you can get some sort of guess at the capacity with a short time test as long as the draw is pretty constant (the voltage would be all over the place if it wasnt, but at least you can see if it is only one battery is bad). Test took about 1 hour in all.

Anyone think of a quicker test?

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1 minute ago, Dr Bob said:

Not easy to test and it could take a long time.

When we were handed over our new boat, it came with a duff set of batteries. Likely during fit out the inverter was left on with no shore power for a week so fully discharging the cheapo batteries fitted. Once we commenced our delivery trip home, the lack of capacity became obvious.

Checked it very crudely, but very informatively, by putting a draw of 15A on (via the inverter, all the lights, the TV, the satellite etc etc but no fridge as that would move the 15A up/down when the compressor kicked in). I then disconnected 3 of the 4 LA's and put a rubber cap over the +ve terminals disconnected so only one battery was feeding the inverter/domestics. I monitored the voltage in the connected battery for 10 mins and plotted the decay in voltage plus also the recovery in voltage of the 3 disconnected batteries. I then connected up the next battery, disconnected the other 3 and repeated the voltage measurements. Repeat for batteries 3 &4.

The results showed that all 4 batteries were performing the same! I thought from the lack of capacity that there would be one shorted battery. How can 4 new batteries be that bad? The drop in voltage in 10 mins under a 15A load on a 110Ahr battery confirmed a lack of capacity. Cant remember the exact details but it was something like 12.00V dropping to 11.80V (cant find my notes so dont moan if the numbers are wrong). Anywho, from that data I estimated the bank were around 150Ahrs total capacity rather than 440Ahrs. It took the company 3 days to come out with replacements (AGMs this time!) and in that time I confirmed the capacity of around 150Ahrs by running them down overnight and checking the rested voltage vs the Ahrs used.

That says to me that you can get some sort of guess at the capacity with a short time test as long as the draw is pretty constant (the voltage would be all over the place if it wasnt, but at least you can see if it is only one battery is bad). Test took about 1 hour in all.

Anyone think of a quicker test?

 

That sounds fine, but personally I'd rather go for the 100% SoC to 50% SoC Vs time method.

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8 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

That sounds fine, but personally I'd rather go for the 100% SoC to 50% SoC Vs time method.

Well that's what I did to confirm the capacity but i) it takes overnight and ii) it doesnt identify if you have one poorly battery with the others good. The one hour test will tell you if one battery is bad or if they are all the same. When they were replaced, the guy who came out with the new ones had a drop tester which showed them all the same and not very well charged.... so at least the drop tester should see if there is one duff battery, but I then sooner do my voltage check to confirm.

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