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How can I tell if my inverter is bad?

Jordan1281

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Oct 9, 2022
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I have four 100 ah lead acid battery’s in parallel. My understanding is this should = 4000 W.
I have a 1500 W inverter hooked up which seems to not provide enough power for my xbox (180W) and 32” lcd tv(50W~). They run but I get that lovely sulfer smell of a hot battery if for to long. I replaced a bad battery recently so all the batteries should be good. Also the tv has a red blinking light indicating a power issue. I also tried hooking up a heating pad and got same blinking red light. Please tell me if I am doing the math wrong or if you agree something wrong with inverter or how it is hooked up. I am including pics of inverter screen while tv and xbox are running and of battery labels.
 

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So how old are the batteries?
Did it ever run properly before?
You replace one of the four battery with new battery?
Can we see the wiring of the setup?
When you see the fault, what is Voltage reading at the battery terminals and on the inverter display?
What does the inverter user manual say about Blinking Red light on the inverter?
 
Without more info, no one can say much. My guess is either you have probably been undercharging the batteries (do you charge only by solar and if so what is your controller and panel setup and if you charge also with an AC charger what are the specs of the charger?)

A single 100Ah will require a charge rate of 15-30A to remain healthy. So a 400Ah bank would need 4x that, 60-120A. That's a lotta juice so either a lot of panels (properly angled to the sun...no bueno if they're flat mounted on a RV roof or something) or a massive AC charger (or multiple chargers). If your bank has only been getting 10-30A, then they've never gotten a proper charge and you're seeing the effects of hard sulfation that happens in lead acid batteries that never get fully charged and/or have been deeply over discharged. Hard sulfation, done repeatedly and deeply, will ruin lead acid batteries, especially sealed ones like AGM or gel.

Also, if the other three batteries are old and well-used (sounds like it), then the new one can cause problems. It's best to replace all of them at once and make sure you can properly get them to a full charge at least once a week, but ideally every day or two.

Note that most "deep cycle" batteries that list CCA (cold cranking amps) are designed for dual duty - to both start an engine and to provide a bit of power for running things like an inverter. They're not true deep cycle batteries like the ones that most off-gridders will use. A real deep cycle battery won't list CCA, it will only list Ah (amp hours). A true deep cycle is single-purpose...it's designed for storing energy and releasing it slowly with short quick burst in amps (like powering up a compressor on a fridge). You could try to use such a battery to start a car's engine, and it might do so in a pinch, but it puts a big strain in the battery as it wasn't designed for that and your dual-duty type (like you have) is more suited for that.

I looked up your battery: https://www.fleetrite.com/parts/electrical-system/battery/flt312150-battery and it says right there, Application: automotive. This is a battery designed to be used in a car or boat, not for powering an inverter. Now your use case assumes that four of these batteries in parallel (assuming all 4 were brand new when you installed them for this purpose) should be enough to power your xbox and tv, so that leads me back to thinking that your batteries have not been receiving (if ever) a proper charge. Where do you come up with these batteries are 100Ah? I don't see it listed in the specs.

Finally, what size cabling do you have between the batteries and also from the batteries to the inverter?
 
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Up front - those aren't truly deep cycle as they are a rebadge of Enersys/Odyssey "tppl" or pure-lead agm. (my gateway drug to lifepo4)

The good news - because they are pure lead, if they aren't totally shot, there is a *chance* you can recover them by yourself. I don't know if these are old discards, or purchased new or what.

They are easily killed however by owners pampering them with insufficient charge, such as from weak solar arrays and treating them like "conventional" agm's.

First up: As a pure-lead, these NEED to have *at least* a 14.7v cv. Not 14.6 or lower. They have to "see" 14.7v cv. Those that say it just takes longer at lower cv's just don't know. When these are introduced into vehicular systems, many are incapable of providing that 14.7v cv, and degrade them. Perhaps these are out of such vehicles!

Also note, that as a pure-lead there is NO input current rush rating! They can handle it, unlike conventional agm. They can handle it! The takeaway is that you don't pussy-foot around here with low current. Unlike a conventional agm's max current input is usually .25 to .3C, this is where these START as a *minimum* required input current, otherwise you walk them down.

It is not clear if you have ever charged these *individually* before putting them into service. If not, and with insufficient charge, you can easily be unbalanced.

The thing to do is find a charge source that is hefty, and has at least a 14.7v CV and charge individually an monitor them just in case they actually have gone to trash. But because they are pure-lead, the chance of you recovering them yourself is greater.

AT the very minimum, set your solar charge controller's CV to 14.7v - but charge each individually, because if that voltage reading you are showing in the pics is true, you are badly out of balance. If they recover individually, you can put them back into your normal service.

Would love to know what your charging / solar setup is. And if these were used. Crossing fingers we can get these bad boys back in operation - albeit they are not truly deep cycle for our purposes, and you have a mix of old and new which is an invitation for never ending problems. Maybe, if things turn out, and your load needs are not so great, you can pair up the most like each other with each other for say two separate systems - a working bank, and a hot-standby you can swap in as the other charges.

Note: Odyssey tends to use the C/10 rate if they publish an actual ah rating at all. All I can find on these is the "RC" rating, so we can use the ballpark trick of multiplying the RC * .6 to come up with a ballpark C/20 ah rating - which so far I see would be 205 * .6 = 123ah. Pretty close to what you state as 100ah - did you find that rating somewhere? Otherwise, we can use the 123ah trick to calculate the minimum desired charge current. Which would be 123 * .3 = 36.9A. So if you have a charger, a 40A unit would be ideal for trying to bring these back. (as long as it has a 14.7v cv)

Makes me cry to see pure-leads getting abused... :)
 
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Looks like Victron charger is a nice bet here with the IP65 or IP22. The "high" mode shows 14.7v which is what pure-lead's (aka TPPL or similar - usually 99% or more pure lead) like.

My preference would be the IP22 for these larger batts. Specifically spelling out 14.7v as a setting on the front panel shows that they know they know about pure-lead. I would try a few normal charges, and if they are totally knackered, then possibly utilize Victron's recondition.

Worth the gamble since replacements cost more than the charger.
 
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Thank you all for your detailed replies. I am going to check out some of your suggestions before answering all the questions. Ty again!
 
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