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[Vic]

But,  first,  Ted;

TWO QUESTIONS,  please;

1.  Do you have the Remote Panel for the Magnum Inverter (this allows you to Customize settings for many important parameters,  and not just use the Defaults).

2.  What model number of Surrette batteries do you have?

Quickly,  none of these off-grid systems is too complex,  just many things that matter quite a lot.  And,  new batteries usually start out GREAT,  but small things,  over a period of time tend to add up,  especially in Winter,  and this is when one knows that things were not always as great as they might have seemed.

More later,  Thanks for the answers,   Vic

[Vic]

Ted,

Every charge source needs to have its own Battery Temperature Sensor (BTS),  unless they can be shared (this sharing is almost always when a single manufacturer has made the inverter,  and CC,  etc).   So,  on your system,  as we understand it needs one BTS for the Inverter,  and one for the Classic  --  these should be placed on a single battery near the center of the bank,  about half-way down the case of that battery ...  better yet,  they should be covered with some Styrofoam(r) for insulation ...

Later,  Vic

[Westbranch]

RE buying new batteries...Do NOT buy them one at a time. 

It is best to get them all with the same lot # (thus the same manufacturing date...)  then they will be matched as best as possible. 

Even better, to get them shipped all a once, and delivered as a unit... and double check the id numbers and date...

[ClassicCrazy]

If you get enough juice in your batteries to fire up the Classic - let us know what the charging and other parameters in it are set for. If you haven't connected to Local Status App on the computer - that makes it a lot easier to see and adjust everything. And you can make a backup  of your settings in case you ever need to reload them into the Classic - much easier than scrolling through menus on the MNGP display .

My guess is that either the temperature sensor might not be doing it's job if the settings in the classic were not set up correctly. And it is very possible that the Absorb time was not long enough to fully charge your batteries.

As others have said, the only way they can freeze is if the get severely discharged which it sounds like is what happened with yours. My batteries are out in an unheated shed in cold Wisconsin and have no problems doing their job all winter.  I have a small 24 watt or less DC load on all the time but I do shut off my inverter  when not around . 

I ruined a battery in the cold by not temperature compensating the charge on my first solar system - but back then it was a small one battery system so a good learning experience !

I hope your batteries come back to life.

Larry

[Resthome]

Ted

You came to the right place. The folks here are very knowledgable and provide great suggestions and help to all who are willing to participate.  And MidNite is one of the best companies around. They have a lot of videos and documentation on their web site so feel free to look around and if you don't find what you are looking for ask in the forums. I'm sure someone with the right answer will help. Including the designers and owners of MidNite as they participate here in the forums.

Spring is just around the corner!

[zoneblue]

I get it guys. I need to be a bit more educated about this sort of thing.  I don't think I'm a complete idiot. I am mechanically inclined, I have to ability to build, wire and assemble.  Practical knowledge.

Self installing a RE system is a deceptively complex thing. In my younger days i trained as an electrical engineer, and still it took me 2 months, 90 percent of which was spent doing research.

The documentation was horrible at best, hence the hundreds of phone calls. 

The analogy here is that i bought say a 12 ton excavator from a guy and expecting him to teach me how to drive it. Even though its a quality unit and comes with very technical documentation about its mechanical and electrical subsystems, but nothing about how do i use it. Its just not realistic to expect, im expected to be in the industry and have staff that know these things, after all it takes a lifetime to learn. Right?

And theres another reason that those kits are not at all the best route for DIY. This is that RE designs are so unique and load centric. Its critical that your system is balanced exactly to your exact load profile. The kit can never anticipate what you want to do with it. No two RE systems are alike.

But, everything went together as it should have. I turned the system on and let it charge itself up with no loads. 

The commissioning of these systems is critical. For one thing the classic alone has over a hundred different settings. Most of which are important, indeed critical. You say nothing about your setpoints, about how you managed the Surrettes notorious tough break in process. (they require persistently high levels of charge in the beginning). About WBJr and tcomp, both vital for the 100 percent important full charge of the battery. That you dont have a hydrometer regime  in place is the most basic of problems.

I ran off of the generator for another the week after installation.  Then I connected the house to it.  AND for rest of September, October, November and most of December, those batteries never dropped below 75% worst case and that was at night. But the following day they would be back to 100% in no time.

Youre talking about this like it was a microwave, that you just turn it on at X power and whatnot. Battery SOC is the hardest thing to measure, with SG being the only sure method. All electronic indicators are utterly dependent on correct programming and installation, and on there best day are only a guide. On a bad day you own worst enemy.

I didn't use my generator once during that time. AND during that time I kept two lights on 24/7.   I have these panels placed where they will get direct sunlight from 11 a.m. to sundown.

The VERY first thing to do is to make a load budget and get the irradiance data for your site. And talking to locals about snow patterns, so you know when array obstruction is to be expected. PV virtually shuts down, CC doenst even come out of sleep with snow on them. In these conditions the array is best almost vertical, for many reasons. Had you come here at the design stage we could have assisted you in all this.

Then the cold weather happened.
Once the sunlight began to diminish, the system would shut down at 60%.

When an inverter goes into LVD, even once, thats a serious wake up call that your design was inadequate, not the system, the design. LVD is to protect the inverter not the battery, and each time you take a battery that low, youve taken a year off its life.

That's when I made even more phone calls to the place I bought the system and the knowledgeable dude on the other end.  Why is it shutting down? I'd ask.  This is why and he'd give me a short but to the point techno-babble answer.  What do I need to do to prevent it and/or prevent damage to the batteries? I'd ask.  Get more batteries and solar panels he'd say. Never once did he say "Shut off the inverter when you leave", "Shut off everything when you leave", "Keep the batteries warm". I don't want/need techno-babble, I need "Do this, do that and then do this".

See above. Youve gotta take responsibility for your own education... this time before you buy the digger, and run it without hydraulic fluid. Otherwise you expecting the supplier to be the installer and that wasnt included in the package. As ive said a solar kit is a silly kind of thing. DIYed are always better off hand picking parts and ordering them one by one. The alternative is to use an professional installer, that avoids the steeep learning curve.

I was / am a P.I.A. to these people.   I have been calling them and emailing them a few times a month during and post installation. I asked all the correct questions and even some that may seem stupid to you brainiacs.  I specifically asked if there were any settings I needed to adjust/make/check or fine tune before I put the system to work.  "No, it's already set, don't need to do anything". I asked about the storing the batteries outside. I asked about leaving on a light and more.  The only concern was the heat tape for the water line and was told it is a concern but shouldn't be a problem.

You know when you go down to home depot and try to have an intelligent converstaion with the aisle staff about the intricacies of cement and water ratios, if you are really lucky on a good day youll hit a guy whose an ex tradie or just a passionate hobbiest, and such a conversion yeilds results. But 99 percent of the time youll be told which aisle the premix is in. Its unreasonable to expect more given the pay rates in retail these days.

I checked the battery level when I got the batteries and two months later. Fine.  In fact even in the frozen state it appears to be fine as well (yes I know water expands).  There is a temperature sensor and it is hooked up but there is no documentation on how to use it or what I should expect.

Battery maintenance takes two forms. At the beginning the critical step of ensuring the charge regime is just spot on. This takes a protracted period of tweaking, measuring, re-tweaking etc. Once your satisfied with that, then monthly maintenance kicks in. SG checks (and knowing how to do that to get a reliable reading), distilled water top up (if its not using water its not being charged properly), terminal clean etc. Load re evaluation (will i have enough charge resources still to match expected demand), array clean/adjust if needed.

I am just baffled how it could go so catastrophic, so fast when it was fine, seriously okay, 2 weeks ago. 

Mate, i think if your wise youll see that you over estimated your ability, and misunderstood the package you bought into. Wisdom= learning from mistakes etc.

I know for a fact that even when I was not here, though the temperatures were in the 20's, there was plenty of sunshine.

Remember what i said about the actual effective sun hours in the NE in winter? Sun hours is a technical term and universally overestimated. And lately the forums have been replete with stories of folk in your region with 10 day bleak spells.  Such things as the weather are specific measurable factors. In fact please reread the entire thread, because this is all solvable when you are ready to move on.

I bought this system because of the recommendations and the EASE of installation and EASE of use.  I may have fallen short on my knowledge of what I was getting into, but I was also under informed by the really poor documentation and guy that sold me the system.

OK so the kit didnt come included with a 500 page how to install solar ebook. But that knowledge can easily be obtained online if you are motivated, and persistent.

Time to man up and take responsibility for this pickle.

Okay, the bottom line is for the next month or two I will be operating on Generator (sadly) and when everything warms up and thaws out, I may or may not have functioning batteries, BUT in the meantime I should consider just buying new batteries (one at a time), storing them in the house in the utility room where it's heated.

No, no, no.

Move the entire inverter power center into the house and hope that the 60' from the house to the panels is not a problem. Shut everything down when I'm not here and expect to use my generator in the winter months.

Yep. You could do this or that. Or... you could do a proper system design exercise, and get a balanced functioning system.

Option #2:  Sell everything and move to Key West.
Thanks guys, I think I know what I need to do now.

Are you sure? The correct question to be asking is: what is NAWs?

[zoneblue]

So, to offset the bad news, I did a little reading on frozen batteries and a fully charged FLA will freeze at -77°F, a 75% SOC battery at -35°F, (and at 50% at -10°F). So your batterys are pretty safe outside as this is the std working range of lead acid systems.

http://jgdarden.com/batteryfaq/carfaq4.htm#freeze_points

And, it seems, anecdotally, that some people have had some success reviving frozen batteries.  The procedure basically involves:
-Under NO circumstances attempt to charge a frozen or partially frozen battery, as the gas pockets may explode.
- fully thawing is important and warming slowly to a suitable charge temp,
- checking all 4 sides of each battery for case integrity,
- not topping up unless the plates are uncovered,
- charging initially using a very low rate to avoid shattering the sulphate layer off the plate  (you want it to slowly reconvert).
- Then finally upping the rate to 0.1C and taking through a couple of absorb cycles if the voltage comes up.

If it did recover, i would be very cautious though, as the stress microcracks throughout the grids may not show up til later, and would watch such a bank like a hawk.

And whether its important to do it sooner rather than later? The usual rule with a flat battery is to recharge ASAP, but the freezing may suppress/suspend the chemical reactions that form hard sulphate?... or it may just freeze even harder and fail completely?

Surrette would be the ones to talk to about your chances.

[dgd]

Zoneblue,

Thanks for your patience in posting those detailed replies   
As the OP says its all to do with education or lack thereof, its good ppl like you and especially Vic have the time and patience to assist, qualities that BTW I struggle with..
Too often I wish there was a PV 101 course or even a Dummies Guide to Solar PV energy as so many of what appear obvious pitfalls repeatedly trap the newbie. Few also seem to do an Electricity 101 course or reading before jumping into the unknown (e.g.that recent pic of a KID and MNPV6 combiner all wired with red cable, would that pass any level of inspection/approval?).

dgd

[mike90045]

So sorry for your loss.  Taking a 48V bank to 6V AND freezing it, is pretty much going to kill it, forever.  i doubt even in expert hands, it is salvageable. 

For recovery, I would suggest you get 8 golf cart 6V batteries and wire in series for 48V.  Pretty much just what you had before, but much smaller (and cheaper) batteries that you can learn from, and then in the summer, after you have things figured out, rebuild your large battery bank with 8 big batteries.
You should also get a 48V battery charger (golf cart store again) that you can connect independently to your generator to charge batteries with if the inverter is unable to charge things.  Having many layers of backup is critical in off grid systems.  I have 3 generators, and 120V charger to run from them, and the 2 solar and  1 inverter chargers.

But learning how the entire system works, and how all the parts work together is the first thing, before you spend much more money.   We can help with that.

The little coin battery in the back of the graphic panel, will run the clock for a couple months before it runs down.  I don't recall if it also backs up all the charger settings.   If you are handy with a computer, you can control the charger with a computer and save and recall settings to a file on the PC.

[zoneblue]

dgd, ive got bl**dy appendictus, so im bedbound, and bored as hell.

Mikes suggestion is a good one, learner bank etc. Theres a saying in teh industry you always kill your first bank.  So... tick.

[estragon]

I've just had a similar mishap to the op's.  System worked fine last winter, but this winter's weather was different.  Milder and a a bit more snow early on.  The milder early winter meant ice was late in forming, so cabin wasn't accessible until mid-Jan.  I got tied up and didn't make it out to check on it until a couple of weeks ago. 

As it turns out, snow had covered the panels sometime in mid-Dec.  Everything is turned off but the classics, but the resting tare + self discharge brought the batteries dead.  I fired up a little honda to try getting a charge started, but the outbacks (48v) wouldn't wake up with the ac, so I started with a little 12v charger doing the batteries in groups of 2.  The electrolyte wasn't solid, but definitely slushy in some cells.

The next day, I got the last of the snow off the panels, and the classics came alive.  Once the voltage on the batteries came up far enough, the outbacks came alive as well, and by the end of the day the batteries were well into absorb.  As near as I could tell, once the batteries were at that point, they were charging/discharging about as I'd expect.

I'm thinking that even though the batteries were sitting in a badly discharged state for some time, the cold temps (~25f) would have slowed the reactions that would otherwise harden the sulfate.

I'll be back out in the next few days to check again, but it looks like there's hope.  I'll check the sg and run eq if need be.

So, if I was the op, I wouldn`t give up on the bank just yet.  FWIW

[dgd]

dgd, ive got bl**dy appendictus, so im bedbound, and bored as hell.

Not good, but I suppose on the positive side there is all that C++ code you can develope in bed with your laptop 

[dgd]

As it turns out, snow had covered the panels sometime in mid-Dec.  Everything is turned off but the classics, but the resting tare + self discharge brought the batteries dead.   

Moving further off-topic... (apologies)
thats a good argument for having a small wind generator directly connected to the battery bank or connected to the input of the Classic where the PV array will be a voltage clipper and stop things getting silly.

dgd

[mike90045]

...
thats a good argument for having a small wind generator directly connected to the battery bank or connected to the input of the Classic where the PV array will be a voltage clipper and stop things getting silly.....dgd

Wow.  if the snow and ice does not jam the turbine, the PV array acts as clipper.      As long as the array is larger then the turbine.

[Vic]

dgd, ive got bl**dy appendictus, so im bedbound, and bored as hell   ...

zoneblue,  very sorry to hear of your appendicitis.  Take care,  and best wishes for a rapid and full recovery.

Vic