Water pump oddness..

[Alan de Enfield]

1 minute ago, lampini said:

Ah, we have solar panels and shoreline only, so when I throw the switch to inverter and turn it on during the day, it’s only the solar that keeps the batteries charged - v simple nikkai 600w inverter..

Suggestion -

 

You have been living with knackered batteries for some time, this has been masked by using shore-line and 3 months of unlimited sunshine.

The weather has now 'broken' (we have had rain for the last 3 days) and when you disconnect the land line, the solar is not generating enough to cover the usage AND re-charge the batteries resulting in further and further depleting the batteries until they screamed "enough" and died.

[lampini]

3 minutes ago, TheBiscuits said:

Sadly yes.  We CC so we don't ever use a shoreline, and the batteries were doing everything we expected, well charged with long cruising days and solar in the glorious sunshine.  Everything was as expected, and one evening the lights flickered when we ran the tap.

 

Of course it was the weekend so getting delivery of new batteries was going to be a few days.  Inverter and fridge off immediately to reduce power load, candles / AA battery powered lights as much as we could, trying not to use any electricity after 8PM - even water from a gallon container for brews.

 

The following morning the voltage on the bank had dropped to 10.5V ish.  I split the bank as described earlier, and one battery was D-E-D dead and the other was walking wounded.  I then gave tayna some money, and spent two days on a 24 hour mooring next to a shower block and a tap.

 

Full marks to tayna though - the delivery driver brought 120 Kg of batteries down the towpath on a pallet and dropped it with one corner touching my boat!

 

 

Good service indeedy! Ok, well we shall see what the mornings investigation reveals! 

1 minute ago, Alan de Enfield said:

Suggestion -

 

You have been living with knackered batteries for some time, this has been masked by using shore-line and 3 months of unlimited sunshine.

The weather has now 'broken' (we have had rain for the last 3 days) and when you disconnect the land line, the solar is not generating enough to cover the usage AND re-charge the batteries resulting in further and further depleting the batteries until they screamed "enough" and died.

AND we did a 10hour cruise last weekend... ?

[Alan de Enfield]

2 minutes ago, lampini said:

 

AND we did a 10hour cruise last weekend... ?

It doesn't matter - if the battery is knackered you could go on a 24 hour cruise.

Imagine a 4 litre bucket which is 3/4 full of mud and stones (equivalent to your batteries with a load of sulphate) you can only put in 1 litre of water and it is full - no matter how much water you pour into the bucket it will just not hold any more

 

Once a sulphated battery(s) tells the alternator 'hey - stop, I'm full now" the alternator will stop putting any more 'leccy into the battery.

If your capacity is very low, it could be that the battery is fully charged after 1 hour engine running.

 

I postulate that you have not been 'living off the batteries' you have been living off the external supply (shore-line and solar).

We (knowingly) did the same for some time - it saved buying new batteries and we were not intending to move.

[TheBiscuits]

8 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

Suggestion -

 

You have been living with knackered batteries for some time, this has been masked by using shore-line and 3 months of unlimited sunshine.

The weather has now 'broken' (we have had rain for the last 3 days) and when you disconnect the land line, the solar is not generating enough to cover the usage AND re-charge the batteries resulting in further and further depleting the batteries until they screamed "enough" and died.

That's pretty much it.  These batteries are stapled to the perch! 

 

@lampini why on earth do you switch the shorepower off and the inverter on during the day?  Let the solar charge your batteries if you want, but leave any mains loads on the mains!

 

Oh, and before you install your new batteries, buy a mains battery charger and install it at the same time!  Ignore those on here who tell you to get a 300A all singing all dancing one - you obviously have very low electrical usage if you have managed with dead batteries and a 600W inverter.  Any charger that can keep up with your usage will do.

 

Note that if budget is tight, you would be far better off with a reasonable charger and less batteries than the other way round.

 

  

[Alan de Enfield]

1 minute ago, TheBiscuits said:

That's pretty much it.  These batteries are stapled to the perch! 

Ahhh - those Blue ones from Norway I presume.

[MtB]

6 hours ago, Alan de Enfield said:

Suggestion -

 

You have been living with knackered batteries for some time, this has been masked by using shore-line and 3 months of unlimited sunshine.

The weather has now 'broken' (we have had rain for the last 3 days) and when you disconnect the land line, the solar is not generating enough to cover the usage AND re-charge the batteries resulting in further and further depleting the batteries until they screamed "enough" and died.

 

This was my diagnosis earlier in the thread. Expressed perhaps less eloquently and in less detail.

 

Easily proved one way or the other by measuring the voltage right on the battery terminals. 

[WotEver]

10 hours ago, lampini said:

I’m not sure about the NASA readings on the % side 

You’re right not to be sure. Those percentages are pure fiction and should be ignored. IF (and it’s a big IF) the BM was set correctly for the battery capacity, and IF the switch to Absorption was set to 1% capacity, and IF you always charged to 100% then the reading would probably be reasonably close. If any of those three variables are not valid then the readings are meaningless. 

10 hours ago, lampini said:

Did yours go from pretty ok to utter pants in half a day tho? 

That’s not what yours have done. They’ve been pants for ages but you’ve only just seen it because the sun hasn’t been out masking the problem. 

Edited September 9, 2018 by WotEver
Typo

[lampini]

10 hours ago, TheBiscuits said:

why on earth do you switch the shorepower off and the inverter on during the day?

This is cos

a. I like free stuff and

b. If I just left the batteries at %100 all the time, somehow they seemed to have less capacity when we went off shoreline I.e. went cruising and would sort of “get lazy”! Maybe my imagination but surely no harm in discharging/ recharging them regularly? never went below 70% even on a dull day....

mind you - we sure have had our money’s worth from them if they are nackered, think they’ve been in the boat about 10 years - 6 with previous owner and 4 with us and added solar... 

[lampini]

12 minutes ago, WotEver said:

You’re right not to be sure. Those percentages are pure fiction and should be ignored. IF (and it’s a big IF) the BM was set correctly for the battery capacity, and IF the switch to Absorption was set to 1% capacity, and IF you always charged to 100% the the reading would probably be reasonably close. If any of those three variables are not valid then the readings are meaningless. 

What of the 13.1v it’s now showing - is that to be trusted tho? Would it read that if only one leisure battery were sha*ged? 

[Tony Brooks]

27 minutes ago, lampini said:

What of the 13.1v it’s now showing - is that to be trusted tho? Would it read that if only one leisure battery were sha*ged? 

 

Providing its wired properly the voltage, amps and amp hours out can be trusted. The readings that can't are Ah in, percentage of charge, and any other reading that is based on Ah in as a starting point in the calculations.

 

the 13.1V implies a charge is being applied to the bank and if it is then yes, a shorting battery may allow the voltage that high as would sulphation although for sulphation I would expect the voltage to quickly climb when on charge.

 

I still think that you need to check the voltdrop across the master switch and any "main" fuse before condemning the batteries.

 

[Alan de Enfield]

19 minutes ago, lampini said:

What of the 13.1v it’s now showing - is that to be trusted tho? Would it read that if only one leisure battery were sha*ged? 

I think that you need to understand that there are two totally separate criteria when talking about batteries.

 

1) Capacity - measured in Ah and basically the bigger and heavier the battery the higher the capacity. for example a 100 Ah battery would (in theory) run a 1 amp load for 100 hours, or a 100 amp load for 1 hour, or any other permutation.

 

2) Voltage - (irrespective of capacity) 12 volt lead acid batteries will be 12 volts (that is a bit of a misnomer as they are around 12.8v when fully charged, and they will be charged at anything up to 14+ volts, the surface charge (until it is absorbed into the plates) can also be (say) 14v). 

 

You can have a tiny, tiny  battery maybe the size of matchbox - it will still be "12v" but the capacity is probably 'milli-amp hours'.

As far as we boaters are concerned we need 'capacity' not voltage, so as our 100Ah battery ages and gets clogged up, the capacity reduces to 75Ah, then, 50Ah, then 25Ah …………. (but will still be at "12v").

We measure the capacity as the time taken for the battery to go 'flat', when the capacity no longer supports our usage patterns the batteries are replaced - they still show 12v but they no longer have the 'power' we need.

 

We measure the state of charge of the battery by measuring the voltage, eg 12.2 volts = approx. 50% charged, 12.8v = 100% charged, and the charging current, so that when the charging current has remained at 1% of battery capacity (so charging at 1 amp for a 100Ah battery) and not changed for an hour, AND the charger voltage is around 14.4v you can say the battery is charged.

[lampini]

12 hours ago, TheBiscuits said:

We had exactly this problem earlier this year, and the correct fix was to give tayna batteries £500 for new ones!

 

Just out of interest - which batteries did you go for from tayna? Found their site - looks good! 

[MtB]

1 hour ago, lampini said:

What of the 13.1v it’s now showing - is that to be trusted tho? Would it read that if only one leisure battery were sha*ged? 

 

Probably yes, as this will be the charging voltage from the solar now it is daylight. What did it read at 10pm last night?

 

The important reading it gave that we need to investigate and cannot be trusted is that low (6.8v?) reading you get when the water pump is running. 

 

Start by measuring the voltage on the actual lead terminals of the battery while the water pump is running. If 6.8v too then your batts are shagged. If 12.x then you just have a poor connection. 

 

 

[Mike Hurley]

1 hour ago, lampini said:

 

 think they’ve been in the boat about 10 years - 6 with previous owner and 4 with us and added solar... 

That point answers everything i reckon.

[lampini]

Bit of hand-holding needed here... 

which setting on this thing do I need to use? 

[nicknorman]

4 minutes ago, lampini said:

Bit of hand-holding needed here... 

which setting on this thing do I need to use? 

To measure voltage? The one that says V 1000 with line over dashed line.

 

note that this meter is not suitable for measuring battery current because it only does AC current, it doesn’t do DC current.

Edited September 9, 2018 by nicknorman

[MtB]

2 minutes ago, lampini said:

Bit of hand-holding needed here... 

which setting on this thing do I need to use? 

 

 

At a pinch, yes.

 

I say at a pinch because there is no low range DC voltage setting. I would normally expect to see a 20v DC range on a meter but this is missing from yours so perhaps the 1,000v DC range will do. Plug the test leads into it, set it to 1,000vDC (seems to be two of them!) and put the probes on the metal of the actual battery terminals. You'll prolly get 13.1v or thereabouts. Now get someone to run a tap and see what the voltage drops to with the water pump running.

 

Report the result here for endless dissection!

[nicknorman]

No, it will be auto-ranging. 1000v is the max voltage for safety reasons.

 

Edit: no it isn’t. Resolution is 1v. What a rubbish meter. Not much use for dc voltage and no use for DC current. And not cheap. Could you take it back to shop and get a better (and cheaper) one?

Edited September 9, 2018 by nicknorman

[lampini]

31 minutes ago, nicknorman said:

No, it will be auto-ranging. 1000v is the max voltage for safety reasons.

 

Edit: no it isn’t. Resolution is 1v. What a rubbish meter. Not much use for dc voltage and no use for DC current. And not cheap. Could you take it back to shop and get a better (and cheaper) one?

Had it for about 15 years!

 

sooo.... 

 

was getting all up n down readings between 13v with nothing on , and 10v with inverter and water pump going also inverter bleeping- then I realised the sun was coming n going from behind clouds! 

 

Covered panels!

 

reading with nothing on - 13v

with inverter ONLY - 11v

with inverter & water pump - 10v + inverter continuous bleep tone

 

batteries r sha*ged? 

The terminals are bolt in ones - the bolts actually go inside the casing - all checked n tight.. 

[TheBiscuits]

1 hour ago, lampini said:

Just out of interest - which batteries did you go for from tayna? Found their site - looks good! 

I was going to say they would be no good for you, being an unusual size for boat batteries.  Then I saw that photo you just posted!

 

https://www.tayna.co.uk/leisure-batteries/enduroline/exv270/

 

Wrong terminals for you though.

[Alan de Enfield]

11 minutes ago, lampini said:

reading with nothing on - 13v

with inverter ONLY - 11v

with inverter & water pump - 10v + inverter continuous bleep tone

 

batteries r ex, batteries, they are deceased, they have curled up their toes, they are DEAD.

Weigh them in - at least you'll get £10 each back for them.

[TheBiscuits]

Just now, Alan de Enfield said:

Weigh them in - at least you'll get £10 each back for them.

Nah, they are bigguns.  I got £45 for my two.

[MtB]

16 minutes ago, lampini said:

reading with nothing on - 13v

with inverter ONLY - 11v

with inverter & water pump - 10v + inverter continuous bleep tone

 

batteries r sha*ged? 

 

Ok so those are the readings with the probes straight onto the terminal bolts? If so then yes this IS a battery problem. \

 

Do you only have the two? Or are there more somewhere? 

 

It could be just one of them goosed and dragging the other down but given their age, it would be best to just replace them as a pair I suggest. 

[TheBiscuits]

8 minutes ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

It could be just one of them goosed and dragging the other down but given their age, it would be best to just replace them as a pair I suggest. 

I'd still split them and test each battery though - if one is still working a bit it might keep the lights on until the delivery driver turns up.  That's exactly what I did when mine died.

[lampini]

12 minutes ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

 

Ok so those are the readings with the probes straight onto the terminal bolts? If so then yes this IS a battery problem. \

 

Do you only have the two? Or are there more somewhere? 

 

It could be just one of them goosed and dragging the other down but given their age, it would be best to just replace them as a pair I suggest. 

Nope, just the two..