I'm essentially an intermediate guy when it comes to solar systems, but I'm stuck with this. How do I check the battery capacity of my bank or essentially check their health?
I've searched here multiple times but can't seem to find the answer...please point me the way if this has already been answered before, maybe my searchfu is just crap.
Here is my situation.
I have two Oddesey Extreme group 31 batteries that I bought new in my van setup. They are 100ah each and I have 400watt of solar charging them. This setup has been working great for a while. I bought these batteries in spring of '22 so they have been cycling for essentially 2.5 years....I've never discharged them below 50% except for one time. I blew a fuze from the charge controller to the batteries, but my fridge kept pulling juice from the batteries (I probably should have not wired it this way but years ago I did so shame on me). I travel a lot for work so I don't know how long the fridge was trying to pull power from the non-charging batteries but it was at least 7 days...maybe 14 days. I've since added a low voltage disconnect so this doesn't happen again, but from that point forward I've always felt like the batteries would drain faster on overnight camping trips so I think I did damage them.
The last 2 months have been really bad. The batteries get down to about 75% capacity within 3hrs of the sun going down. The only constant drain is my fridge at about 4.5amps per hr avg and my Max Aire fan at lets say 1.5ah/hr and some lights at maybe 1ah/hr (I don't use them very much). So, despite this low load I've gotten below 12.4v before midnight (7hrs after sunset). So, I think my batteries are shot but how do I know for sure?
I disconnected the load and they have been sitting on a charger for about two weeks now but I'd really like to figure out their condition before I spend some big bucks on another replacement. How do I do that?
Jeff
I've searched here multiple times but can't seem to find the answer...please point me the way if this has already been answered before, maybe my searchfu is just crap.
Here is my situation.
I have two Oddesey Extreme group 31 batteries that I bought new in my van setup. They are 100ah each and I have 400watt of solar charging them. This setup has been working great for a while. I bought these batteries in spring of '22 so they have been cycling for essentially 2.5 years....I've never discharged them below 50% except for one time. I blew a fuze from the charge controller to the batteries, but my fridge kept pulling juice from the batteries (I probably should have not wired it this way but years ago I did so shame on me). I travel a lot for work so I don't know how long the fridge was trying to pull power from the non-charging batteries but it was at least 7 days...maybe 14 days. I've since added a low voltage disconnect so this doesn't happen again, but from that point forward I've always felt like the batteries would drain faster on overnight camping trips so I think I did damage them.
The last 2 months have been really bad. The batteries get down to about 75% capacity within 3hrs of the sun going down. The only constant drain is my fridge at about 4.5amps per hr avg and my Max Aire fan at lets say 1.5ah/hr and some lights at maybe 1ah/hr (I don't use them very much). So, despite this low load I've gotten below 12.4v before midnight (7hrs after sunset). So, I think my batteries are shot but how do I know for sure?
I disconnected the load and they have been sitting on a charger for about two weeks now but I'd really like to figure out their condition before I spend some big bucks on another replacement. How do I do that?
Jeff