MurphyGuy
It just needs a bigger hammer
- Joined
- May 20, 2020
- Messages
- 4,129
1) I do not have washers nor dielectric grease....will correct.
2) I have maintained water levels.
3) Recent hydrometer and multimeter voltage readings attached.
4) Photos of charge settings attached....possibly set at 70A?
5) Several current photos attached...I'm new to this stuff.
Under Battery Setup on the BATT tab I would set your MAX A CHARGE to 70 amps which works out to 35 amps per string. Run it there for a few months and see how it affects your water levels. After a couple months, you can increase to 80 (40 per string) and see if you notice any excessive water losses. I don't think I would go higher than 80 though as you're probably going to be pouring water into those cells frequently at that rate.
Under Battery Setup on the CHARGE tab, I would set that for 50 amps, but you can set it for whatever you want as I suspect the inverter will not allow a charge rate higher than what you set in the BATT tab at 70 amps.
With lead acid cells, if you charge them too slow, they won't get charged fast enough and the sulfates can stick to the plates and harm the battery. But if you charge them too fast, that's just as bad as it can blow apart your plates and boil them dry.
I think some of your problem is in your battery connections. Those connections look corroded and, (guessing), look like they aren't mated to the terminals well. This doesn't really make much of a difference when you're passing 30 or 40 amps back and forth, but when you start drawing real current and sucking up 70+ amps, those connections are going to start heating up and the resistance is going to cause a problem.
Clean them up, shine up the terminals and remove all corrosion. Polish those connections clean, then coat the crap out of everything with dielectric grease and use a torque wrench to tighten them down to spec if you're not accustomed to doing it. Too loose and bad things happen (corrosion, heat, etc).. too tight and you can physically damage them (stripped threads, broken terminals, etc)
I didn't read everything in this thread.. Did you use a hydrometer? If not, then you need to get one. Owning a lead acid battery bank without owning a hydrometer is like owning a car that doesn't have any fuel, temp, or speedometer gauges. Take the guesswork away with a hydrometer.
And you are using distilled water right? Not tap water or bottled water?