I was very interested to see what the opening voltage would be this morning…
I took the picture in darkness because I was cheating a bit, and it wouldn’t focus. Still: Just a hair under 12.5 volts, which is a personal best for my system. Which wasn’t really a surprise. A pleasant confirmation, though. Lately it’s been more like…
…which is not acceptable at all, and that’s on a pleasantly mild morning. Wait’ll the cold comes and starts screwing with the battery efficiency. I really needed to get this done before the cold, and now it is.
I was able to tag along on a ride to town this morning. Went to the auto parts store, and…
Now we’re completely done. I replaced the positive cable with a longer one that didn’t have to lay across the top of the batteries, and got a connector so I could make a new positive wire for the battery charger which is now connected. Greased the positive connections on all six batteries, and we’re done. And just in time for a promised early visit from winter.
Looks legit to me!
(At least, the battery bank…I can’t tell where all the rest of the wires go…)
😀 Half the time neither can I.
Joel,
What I’m curious about is your total watt hours and your usable watt hours vs. What you paid for the batteries?
I recently purchased a EcoFlo Delta pro set up with two 400 watt panels that will give me 3.6kwh when fully charged. It will run my chest freezer as well as my fridge plus lights for 24 hours.
Eric.
Eric, I’ve got six 215 amp/hour batteries, that cost a little over 200 bucks apiece. Like everything else the price has gone way up since last time. With the startling tax, the bill was a little over $1350. I got six solid years out of my four batteries; I’m hoping this bank will last longer but not sure of that: golf cart batteries are generally good for 5-6 years regardless of how you stack them.
Good to here the plan is coming, mostlt, together. Sounds like just the fiddly bits to square away.
Careful there, you’re gonna start getting all comfortable, warm n sheeeit. I hope.
Could you insulate and heat your batteries?
I’m curious – obviously, there’s a practical limit to number (and size) of batteries because too much and the panel capacity might not get the full bank charged, but in your case, could you add more batteries, and how many?
And, is it practical to have “too many batteries” in a configuration that allows temporarily taking some out of the charging loop? EX: On a sunny day all batteries are connected, on less-than-fully-sunny days 25%, say, are “switched out” so battery load matches available panel array output. I’m thinking about having more “cloudy day” capacity in situations where you know (or can reasonably expect) a need for more battery capacity than would normally be available for a period of cloudiness.
Nice. It’s good to see a plan coming together, even though there were a few speed bumps along the way.
BTW, I noticed the previous post about your spill off the Rad Ebike. If you begin to find your ebike to be too much to use and have a few extra bucks, here’s an option to think about.
https://www.cube.eu/cube-trike-flatbed-hybrid-750-swampgrey-n-reflex/121210