Battery Bank Life Span

Robert Harrow wrote:I notice that several people recommend fork lift truck batteries for use in solar systems, as does my solar adviser/supplier!
I run a 24v system using 4 Rolls Surette 6v batteries wired in series together with an Outback voltage regulator. I made the decision to use Rolls batteries which I now regret.
As stated my batteries are wired in series and have all been enthusiastically maintained and topped up as necessary. They have been set up exactly as per their very detailed manual.
However, after 4 years of use, one battery remains as thought it were brand new and the other three have gone duff. Rolls agreed to replace one last year, at a slightly reduced price and so far that one is performing well. The two remaining are well down on Specific Gravity and will not budge with equalising.
I should add that we live in Spain and there is no shortage of sunshine. I have always used a generator to keep the batteries topped up when we have had a couple of dull days. Acid levels, too, have been checked and topped up with distilled water as necessary!
I have recently received a reply from Rolls and they have agreed to replace my two defective batteries at a reduced price!

thomas rubino wrote:Haven't tried these yet, but they are on my list.  Freeze proof ! Can live outdoors all winter ... expected but not yet proven life of 20 years !  Dump them in your garden after they are dead. Completely non hazardous to ship ! Cost is higher than trojans but trojans only last 7 years.  Here is a link   http://www.siliconebatteries.ca/gs.html  here is a link to my local A.E. supplier www.backwoodssolar.com/

Jeremy Torquoize wrote:New guy, new year! What's up? Has anyone here heard of the battery life saver? (BLS)
https://youtu.be/wtXhV4Qxk6g
It's said to salvage and maintain lead acid batteries by breaking up the crystal deposits that build up inside. I'll summarise the main points about it from what I've gathered.
•~$100
•Works in parallel with the battery bank (yes, all the batteries, all at once)
•Available for various voltage base Banks: you have to get one that matches the voltage range of your system.
•uses patented square wave technology to break up leftover crystal deposits inside the batteries.
•works upon full charge and discharge cycles
•uses a small amount of the batteries' own power, and often comes with a switch.

"It discharged my golf cart battery in one or two weeks!" Says one review. "We don't even use the golf cart that much." (I'm just paraphrasing)

Here's some Amazon reviews
https://www.amazon.com/Battery-BLS-48N-System-Desulfator-Rejuvenator/product-reviews/B006X26YA4

It has mixed reviews on Amazon, but I doubt they're all educated on how it actually works. One review mentioned frying someone's charger, which makes sense since it pumps square waves into the circuit. At least that's how I understand it.

That being said, I wonder how it would get along with certain kinds of charge controllers and other sensitive moderators. Late mention, I've never done solar in my life. I'm in the research phase, but I have a basic understanding of electronics. The science makes sense and I'm willing to try it. If it can extend the life of lead acid batteries like the claim said, it could be a major game changer.

Jeremy Torquoize wrote:New guy, new year! What's up? Has anyone here heard of the battery life saver? (BLS)
https://youtu.be/wtXhV4Qxk6g
It's said to salvage and maintain lead acid batteries by breaking up the crystal deposits that build up inside. I'll summarise the main points about it from what I've gathered.
•~$100
•Works in parallel with the battery bank (yes, all the batteries, all at once)
•Available for various voltage base Banks: you have to get one that matches the voltage range of your system.
•uses patented square wave technology to break up leftover crystal deposits inside the batteries.
•works upon full charge and discharge cycles
•uses a small amount of the batteries' own power, and often comes with a switch.

"It discharged my golf cart battery in one or two weeks!" Says one review. "We don't even use the golf cart that much." (I'm just paraphrasing)

Here's some Amazon reviews
https://www.amazon.com/Battery-BLS-48N-System-Desulfator-Rejuvenator/product-reviews/B006X26YA4

It has mixed reviews on Amazon, but I doubt they're all educated on how it actually works. One review mentioned frying someone's charger, which makes sense since it pumps square waves into the circuit. At least that's how I understand it.

That being said, I wonder how it would get along with certain kinds of charge controllers and other sensitive moderators. Late mention, I've never done solar in my life. I'm in the research phase, but I have a basic understanding of electronics. The science makes sense and I'm willing to try it. If it can extend the life of lead acid batteries like the claim said, it could be a major game changer.

Tommy Wilder wrote:

Jeremy Torquoize wrote:New guy, new year! What's up? Has anyone here heard of the battery life saver? (BLS)
https://youtu.be/wtXhV4Qxk6g
It's said to salvage and maintain lead acid batteries by breaking up the crystal deposits that build up inside. I'll summarise the main points about it from what I've gathered.
•~$100
•Works in parallel with the battery bank (yes, all the batteries, all at once)
•Available for various voltage base Banks: you have to get one that matches the voltage range of your system.
•uses patented square wave technology to break up leftover crystal deposits inside the batteries.
•works upon full charge and discharge cycles
•uses a small amount of the batteries' own power, and often comes with a switch.

"It discharged my golf cart battery in one or two weeks!" Says one review. "We don't even use the golf cart that much." (I'm just paraphrasing)

Here's some Amazon reviews
https://www.amazon.com/Battery-BLS-48N-System-Desulfator-Rejuvenator/product-reviews/B006X26YA4

It has mixed reviews on Amazon, but I doubt they're all educated on how it actually works. One review mentioned frying someone's charger, which makes sense since it pumps square waves into the circuit. At least that's how I understand it.

That being said, I wonder how it would get along with certain kinds of charge controllers and other sensitive moderators. Late mention, I've never done solar in my life. I'm in the research phase, but I have a basic understanding of electronics. The science makes sense and I'm willing to try it. If it can extend the life of lead acid batteries like the claim said, it could be a major game changer.

Jeremy, you might want to research the chemical reactions in lead-acid batteries: it's a bit of a public "secret" that lead-acid batteries are slowly damaged, hence the short lifetime, by never let the battery control thecharging voltage. It is usually limited at 14 - 14.5v. Try hooking up a healthy lead-acid battery to a 12v solar panel and monitor the voltage. (Solarpanel should be able to handle the charge current). You will notice that the voltage rises until often 15.8-16.2v, and then settles around 15v later on. This is super important as at that moment of the top-voltage, ALL sulfate is back into the h2so4 solution, thereby bringing the battery in new condition.

In other words, allmost all chargers are slow killers, including the car charging system. If you could design or buy a charge system which has this option, your lead-acid battery might last you double, if not triple it's lifetime (speculation on my side!)

Happy researching!
Tom

Troy Rhodes wrote:

Tommy Wilder wrote:

Jeremy Torquoize wrote:New guy, new year! What's up? Has anyone here heard of the battery life saver? (BLS)
https://youtu.be/wtXhV4Qxk6g
It's said to salvage and maintain lead acid batteries by breaking up the crystal deposits that build up inside. I'll summarise the main points about it from what I've gathered.
•~$100
•Works in parallel with the battery bank (yes, all the batteries, all at once)
•Available for various voltage base Banks: you have to get one that matches the voltage range of your system.
•uses patented square wave technology to break up leftover crystal deposits inside the batteries.
•works upon full charge and discharge cycles
•uses a small amount of the batteries' own power, and often comes with a switch.

"It discharged my golf cart battery in one or two weeks!" Says one review. "We don't even use the golf cart that much." (I'm just paraphrasing)

Here's some Amazon reviews
https://www.amazon.com/Battery-BLS-48N-System-Desulfator-Rejuvenator/product-reviews/B006X26YA4

It has mixed reviews on Amazon, but I doubt they're all educated on how it actually works. One review mentioned frying someone's charger, which makes sense since it pumps square waves into the circuit. At least that's how I understand it.

That being said, I wonder how it would get along with certain kinds of charge controllers and other sensitive moderators. Late mention, I've never done solar in my life. I'm in the research phase, but I have a basic understanding of electronics. The science makes sense and I'm willing to try it. If it can extend the life of lead acid batteries like the claim said, it could be a major game changer.

Jeremy, you might want to research the chemical reactions in lead-acid batteries: it's a bit of a public "secret" that lead-acid batteries are slowly damaged, hence the short lifetime, by never let the battery control thecharging voltage. It is usually limited at 14 - 14.5v. Try hooking up a healthy lead-acid battery to a 12v solar panel and monitor the voltage. (Solarpanel should be able to handle the charge current). You will notice that the voltage rises until often 15.8-16.2v, and then settles around 15v later on. This is super important as at that moment of the top-voltage, ALL sulfate is back into the h2so4 solution, thereby bringing the battery in new condition.

In other words, allmost all chargers are slow killers, including the car charging system. If you could design or buy a charge system which has this option, your lead-acid battery might last you double, if not triple it's lifetime (speculation on my side!)

Happy researching!
Tom

A "controlled overcharge", which is pretty much what Tom described, is certainly a useful tool for prolonging the life of deep cycle lead acid batteries.  But it comes at a cost.  Shoving the last few percent of capacity into a battery becomes inefficient and will consume a disproportionate amount of electricity compared to what you actually store.  Plus, the battery will start to warm up and produce hydrogen gas in excess.  This will generally cause faster loss of electrolyte, so you'd have to watch it carefully.  Pushing too hard for too long can also start to cause material to be lost from the plates.

It's all a big balancing act.  The more sophisticated battery charging systems will have an input to monitor battery temperature for exactly this reason.

Tommy Wilder wrote:I've tried the setup with a solarpanel (40w) on  9ah gell batteries. Works ok, no heat.
In the near future I will research this more but a general way of thinking is this: monitoring of batteries is indeed a must! This i will approach with arduino/raspberry eleftronics. An arduino can monitor one or more batteries (don't know now) and a raspberry monitoring the data of the arduinos and decide which batteries needs charging. During charging that battery will be disconnected from the batt-bank, so the high charging voltage will be not exposed to connected electronics. So every battery will get it's own "address". Its probably already somewhere on the internet.
Further research will go into supercapacitors connecting to solarpanels as they should be very helpful in starting electromotors, which often require almost double the power during startup (need less panels and better for connected batteries).
Also, a 3rd aspect will be small setups. Panels near point-of-use. Cuts costs on cable.

Anyway, i'm in the process of building my home now. Probably move there in september, so then the thinkering starts....

Jeremy Torquoize wrote:

Tommy Wilder wrote:I've tried the setup with a solarpanel (40w) on  9ah gell batteries. Works ok, no heat.
In the near future I will research this more but a general way of thinking is this: monitoring of batteries is indeed a must! This i will approach with arduino/raspberry eleftronics. An arduino can monitor one or more batteries (don't know now) and a raspberry monitoring the data of the arduinos and decide which batteries needs charging. During charging that battery will be disconnected from the batt-bank, so the high charging voltage will be not exposed to connected electronics. So every battery will get it's own "address". Its probably already somewhere on the internet.
Further research will go into supercapacitors connecting to solarpanels as they should be very helpful in starting electromotors, which often require almost double the power during startup (need less panels and better for connected batteries).
Also, a 3rd aspect will be small setups. Panels near point-of-use. Cuts costs on cable.

Anyway, i'm in the process of building my home now. Probably move there in september, so then the thinkering starts....

I'd that the controlled overcharge setup or the BLS setup that "works okay, no heat..."? I'd be interested to know how it works out, especially if you're monitoring it with a raspberry pi. i was thinking of doing something similar where the collected data could be gathered and recorded in ascii. I was particularly interested in the universal battery charging system from earlier in this forum. But I might just keep it simple and use a voltage meter periodically.

After hearing this discussion about controlled overcharging, I'm even more convinced about the battery life saver now. If it's just a matter of breaking down the extra crystals, I can imagine how overcharging the plates can accomplish this. That being said, it makes even more sense how sending specific ripples into the battery can also shake off the deposits. There's an entire feild of physics about wave form energy across the various sciences, and how frequencies effect the results of things in various circumstances. A waveform technology may be all the controlled overcharge we need in a system. I'm definitely going to try it out now.

Jeremy Torquoize wrote:

Tommy Wilder wrote:I've tried the setup with a solarpanel (40w) on  9ah gell batteries. Works ok, no heat.
In the near future I will research this more but a general way of thinking is this: monitoring of batteries is indeed a must! This i will approach with arduino/raspberry eleftronics. An arduino can monitor one or more batteries (don't know now) and a raspberry monitoring the data of the arduinos and decide which batteries needs charging. During charging that battery will be disconnected from the batt-bank, so the high charging voltage will be not exposed to connected electronics. So every battery will get it's own "address". Its probably already somewhere on the internet.
Further research will go into supercapacitors connecting to solarpanels as they should be very helpful in starting electromotors, which often require almost double the power during startup (need less panels and better for connected batteries).
Also, a 3rd aspect will be small setups. Panels near point-of-use. Cuts costs on cable.

Anyway, i'm in the process of building my home now. Probably move there in september, so then the thinkering starts....

I'd that the controlled overcharge setup or the BLS setup that "works okay, no heat..."? I'd be interested to know how it works out, especially if you're monitoring it with a raspberry pi. i was thinking of doing something similar where the collected data could be gathered and recorded in ascii. I was particularly interested in the universal battery charging system from earlier in this forum. But I might just keep it simple and use a voltage meter periodically.

After hearing this discussion about controlled overcharging, I'm even more convinced about the battery life saver now. If it's just a matter of breaking down the extra crystals, I can imagine how overcharging the plates can accomplish this. That being said, it makes even more sense how sending specific ripples into the battery can also shake off the deposits. There's an entire feild of physics about wave form energy across the various sciences, and how frequencies effect the results of things in various circumstances. A waveform technology may be all the controlled overcharge we need in a system. I'm definitely going to try it out now.

Eliza McNannay wrote:We live off-grid with a 2.7kw solar system and 24 deep-cycle Rolls S460 batteries in 3 strings of 8.
Baby do we baby these!! Want to get the most out of this investment possible.
The grid is 1.5 miles away up a winding canyon road. It is not coming without an investment of over $100K and we do not want the option anyway.

Regular maintenance is key! Know how your system operates and monitor, monitor, monitor.
Equalize at least twice each year, as the main season changes happen.
During the hard part of winter we cannot leave the property - no vacations in the tropics.  
Our generator is also connected to the battery bank and we rely on this interconnected system for all our electric power needs.

On the MAJOR positive end of this - when our little local town has been without power for up to a week, we were fully operational with freezer, fridge, lights...
Cook on a beautiful wood cookstove, too.
Getting snowed in is not a burden!

Also, I do quite a bit of work in the RE field as a consultant primarily for small commercial (think small/med ag and small rural business) funding opps. Love the tech side and the LOW-tech side equally.

We are 4 years in on this grand adventure and keep learning lessons along the way.
Would not trade this life for anything!!

Always love hearing about what people are doing. Love reading/lurking on the permies site for all kinds of great info and insight!