battery age

[bottle]

I'll admit that you (both) stated it.

 

 

 

On another point I think my sense of humour, aside comments go over some peoples heads.

 

Ah! well never mind.

[John V]

TOOOOOOOOOOO subtle

[ditchcrawler]

 

 

This test takes a long time and produces information not actually relevant to most boaters, (do you really need to know your battery has 68.3% of its original capacity left, rather that realising it won't keep the fridge going overnight?) and so is rarely used.

Its also very boring to carry out

[Top cat]

I've heard from many sources that people who use suitability sized solar panels to charge their batteries get longer lives out of their batteries. I have no hard evidence to back that up.

We are using a 130W panel to charge out batteries through a 3 step MPPT charger to charge 4 x110Ah sealed liesure batteries (nothing special). After 2 years use (approx 300 cycles) the batteries easily do what ever we ask of them. I've yet to see them drop below 12.4V even under load.

So far it's looking good and since getting the solar panel I never worry about battery capacity or getting them charged, before I got the panel it was always an issue.

 

Terry

[George94]

It's only in the last few years that solar panels have become cheap enough to be adopted on a large scale, and that means we don't yet have much evidence to go on. In ten years time we will have much more.

 

However, it does make sense that if you are charging your batteries properly every day, then they should last longer. Also, during daylight hours, most of your DC consumption will be provided by the panels, rather than the batteries, so that means they are being used less, which in turn will aid longevity.

[Tony Brooks]

Also for holiday boats with no shoreline before Solar there was no realistic way of getting them 100% charged and keeping them that way when you left the boat. Now overa few days solr will do it so it cuts down on the rate of sulphation.