Local App - SNAFU :-|

[SolarMusher]

But good news, after separing the batteries in two blocks, the first block is now jumping to 15.7 Volts and the charger delivers 7A in these two batteries (see photos enclosed, if you are connected !!).

Did you check for loose connections and wiring on this batteries???
1.180 is below 50% dod, so you'll need to charge maybe 130/140 amps plus 20% in these batteries, with just 7A it would take around 24/25hr to charge them. Give them a try anyway.
Erik

[SolarMusher]

For dgd, I replied stating that at 16 hours (04:00PM) the electrolyte  was to 1.18 just after the end of the Float period

How many watts did your Classic harvest during this charge?
Really not good sign...
Yann, did you also check each 6V batt voltage with voltmeter just to be sure that you don't have a bad cell in this bank?
Did you see voltage rising when these batteries were wired to 24V and charging?
A dead cell could also explain all these problems.
Check it and post, please.
Erik

[SolarMusher]

I only know 2 languages. English and Bad English so my hat is off to anyone who can communicate in  more than one!

Hey Tom,
I also speak Frenglish or Quebec French which is a blend of both, very hard to understand for French guys.
It could be very funny sometimes
Erik

[Lya72]

So, after two hours charging the first 12V battery pack, the voltage jumps from 15.7V to 15.9V and the SG is 1.20 (photo enclosed).
As you can see on the picture,  the hydrometer float isn't hitting the plastic cover.

A little rotten egg smell in the room but it's well ventilated.

How many watts did your Classic harvest during this charge?

0.4Kwh for yesterday

Did you see voltage rising when these batteries were wired to 24V and charging?

Yes, a little from 28.6V yesterday at 16:00 (04:00PM) to 29.7V today at 13:00(01:00 PM)


On the second 12Volts battery pack, Voltage in charge, at first reading is 15.8V and SG is 1.18.

Next check in two hours....

[Lya72]

Yann, I would not expect your little charger to make much difference to the SG , most (all?) of its output would be going to the constant loads

When the sun does shine do you have any shadows on the panels?

Westbranch,

1°) All constant loads are unplugged from the batteries since yesterday.

2°) In december-January, just a little roof shadow on the fourth panel footer left corner, during 1/2 hour beetween 01:30-02:00PM
The days with 0.1Kwh are only made with day light (no sun) during 7 hours.

Yann

[SolarMusher]

So, after two hours charging the first 12V battery pack, the voltage jumps from 15.7V to 15.9V and the SG is 1.20 (photo enclosed).

Keep them on charge without load until SG rise to 1.265. 1.200 is 50%, so still 120 amps +20% to push into this serie (21 heures).

A little rotten egg smell in the room but it's well ventilated.

Not a problem when slow charging at 7 amps.

On the second 12Volts battery pack, Voltage in charge, at first reading is 15.8V and SG is 1.18.

Do you have another charger??? If so plug both on this first 12V serie and repeat on the second one.
Did you check each/all cells with your hydrometer and each battery with voltmeter? If so, what were the results?
Did you find a bad connection? Were these connections clean and tight?
Are these batteries cold? If so, how cold it is?

In december-January, just a little roof shadow on the fourth panel footer left corner, during 1/2 hour beetween 01:30-02:00PM

How many hours of sun, do you have on these panels on a great sunny day in february?
To me your array, in february when sunny, should produce at least 1x its rating power, 1kw and up to 2kw (if your batteries need it). But on the other end, it could produce near 0 when dark on rainy days. 0.6kw/hr day is pretty low for at least 4hrs of good sun, that's your problem.
At what time in the morning, does the sunray hit your panels without shadows from wall/chimney? I could not believe that it's before 10hr30/11hrs am... 
This morning at noon, in overcast condition, my 3.2kw/hr array had produced 2.7kw, so I will have at least 3.2kw into batteries before 15hr PM (but my batts were full yesterday). In February my array really start producing around 9hr30 AM until 14hr30/15hr PM, 5 hours of good sun are available two or three times a week.
Erik

[Lya72]

Actually, on each battery, there is one cell that is 1/10 point above the 2 others, ie 1.22 vs 1.21 on the second pack with 3 hours of charge and 1.21 vs 1.20 on the first pack with two hours of charge.

I haven't a second charger, in my garage.





Yes, the sun is hitting my installation at 08:30AM (see the enclosed picture) of the 2013/02/07. On this day, there 07h30 of sun on the panels.

On the 2013/02/02, I was able to produce 2.5 Kwh by putting loads on when my Classic has gone in absorb mode.
The loads were my NAS's (60W) and a micro-inverter to inject on the grid (240 W).
But it was manual and the sun was not constant, there were a lot of clouds (see my voltage graphics enclosed)



Don't forget, that in automatic mode, The Classic is wasting a lot of the production, when getting in Absorb mode and in Float mode.

[Westbranch]

Ah ha, there is more to the story than we knew. 
Yann, re:
Battery recovery: Keep charging all day and night.  It is good that the batteries are coming back up, hopefully they will get back to full charge, but as you see it is a slow process.  What is important is to remember you have to work with both WattHr and AmpHr, reason being is shown on your voltage graphs, as time goes on the V (and SG) is slowly rising, 2 days ago it was starting at 28V, going up to 29, now it is starting at over 29 going to ~29.5.
ps where are you getting the constant sampling V data from  and how ?

don't forget to do a V reading after 3 hours of rest, to get the true battery Voltage, and since these are 6 volt cells , each cell should be monitored as it gives greater resolution to the data.  It will show if you have a weak cell.

Shade on panels:  that little bit of shade will probably reduce that arrays output by as much as 50%.  I had the faintest shadow on one panel, I could not really see it it was so slight, and lost ~40%.  I cut down the tree in Nov and watched the power coming into the CC double.  Prune those trees if possible, it will be well worth it .

Grid tie : this may also be where the battery recharge deficit is being increased. Since your SG was so low you should not have been 'SELLING' until you reached float IMHO. Absorb is needed to complete a FULL recharge of your batteries.
Where are you drawing that power from?  The CC to battery wiring or Buss bar?
By selling on a good sunny day you miss the opportunity to use PV for an EQ, short as it may be.

The sulphur smell shows that you are getting a 'deep ' charge and the electrolyte is getting mixed.  did you ever do what is refered to as a "Commissioning Charge" when you put your system in?

Have you ever topped up the electrolyte in the batteries with water?

hth

[SolarMusher]

the voltage jumps from 15.7V to 15.9V

Where did you take this charging voltage from???
How a little 7A/12V could charge a 12V 240AH battery at these voltage, a 12V system in charge should be in the 14.4V range (EQ voltage excepted).
You have to read voltage from battery posts and not from your charger clamps.
You'd better read the voltage of each 6V battery with your voltmeter from pos to neg to compare if these 6V batts voltages are even.
Erik

[Lya72]

Erik,

These voltage were read on the batteries poles on which the charger clamps were plugged during the charge of the 12V first pack.
This is actually slowing to 15.61 Volts. If I measure just one battery after the other, one is 7.81Volts and the second is 7.80 Volts.
(Thanks for the idea, I was thinking that it was impossible to read the value of one battery without unplug it from the other).

Yes, these batteries are going up in voltage very rapidly, see the  2013/02/07 graph in my latest post above,
With the Classic, it has gone from 24.5V to 29.2V in less than one hour, from 08:30AM to 09:20AM.

Yann
 

[Lya72]

WestBranch,

You are running very rapidly, like a cheetah, in your conclusions.

I'm searching elements and I will argument on it.

Yann

[dgd]

Ah ha, there is more to the story than we knew. 

Isn't there always 

Not enough sun to charge the batteries in winter, sort out shading, add more PVs, wind turbine, get a charger/genny etc...
When sun on PVs the batteries get to FLOAT and PV power wasted. Get larger batteries..

dgd

[dgd]

the voltage jumps from 15.7V to 15.9V

Where did you take this charging voltage from???
How a little 7A/12V could charge a 12V 240AH battery at these voltage, a 12V system in charge should be in the 14.4V range (EQ voltage excepted).
You have to read voltage from battery posts and not from your charger clamps.
You'd better read the voltage of each 6V battery with your voltmeter from pos to neg to compare if these 6V batts voltages are even.
Erik

Wish I had a 7A/12v charger that would make those voltages on a pair of 240Ah 6V series batteries. Either the charger clamps not good and reading no load voltage on the charger or there is a zero missing after the 7   
15.9v is EQ voltage for these batteries...
dgd

[Lya72]

Pffffuuu, I'm late to answer all the posts, because I translate and type slowly !

ps where are you getting the constant sampling V data from  and how ?

These voltages readings come from the Busses Bars, after going in a Voltage divider, enters in one analog port of WebRelayBoard. This card host a WebServer which I request every minute from my Synology NAS to get the current voltage and put it in a MySQL database. The graphes are made with JpGraph.
When I bought the Classic, I was thinking that the WebRelayBoard will be replaced for this logs function.

Shade on panels :

This roof shadow just exist during 30 minutes in December-January when the sun is low on the horizon. For this reason, the panels are on 2 strings, the second string sees entirely  the sun. You can't say that these 30 minutes are the cause of the 0.1kwh production on ten days not consecutives. It's the installation that doesn't perform well with low irradiation.

Grid Tie :

This test was done on one day in January and one day in February because I need two conditions : Great Sun and to be present at home, near the Classic. The others days, I was at work or there was no sun !
When I get on the micro-inverter (250W), the Absorb Mode stays at 29.2V, so the micro-inverter just is using the power wasted. This is OK, unless there are clouds during a minute or two.
This is where my work isn't achieved, to retrieve the Charge STEP information from the Classic. The Objective is to stop the micro-inverter, if the voltage goes below the FLOAT point.

Have you ever topped up the electrolyte in the batteries with water?

The battery levels are checked each month and the consumption is 2 liters of demineralized water for the year for the four batteries.

Not enough sun to charge the batteries in winter, sort out shading, add more PVs, wind turbine, get a charger/genny etc...
When sun on PVs the batteries get to FLOAT and PV power wasted. Get larger batteries..

Just to follow you, have you quote an installation like this with all the elements you preconised ??
What is the cost of one Kwh produced with all that material ?, below 0.5 euro on twelve years ?

Wish I had a 7A/12v charger that would make those voltages on a pair of 240Ah 6V series batteries. Either the charger clamps not good and reading no load voltage on the charger or there is a zero missing after the 7   
15.9v is EQ voltage for these batteries...

It's a 12/24V 10A that is pushed to his maximum as you can see on the pictures.
Do you think, that I must lower the Amperage, to continue to augment the SG value this night ?


Yann

[Westbranch]

Yann, did you check the SG on the battery that is 15.9 V ??

Has the temp risen on that battery? 

Is the battery bubbling or making hissing noises?