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South Carolina BMS Low Temperature Shutdown... How about where you are?

Rhodyjoe

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Nov 21, 2021
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This is just a conversation starter...
Here in Lancaster, SC the morning temperature was 14°F. This would be considered a fairly rare occurrence for South Carolina.
My 24V LiFePO4 battery bank is in an off grid, insulated but unheated metal building (workshop). The temp inside was 36°F which triggered the 2°C (35.6°F) low temp cutoff parameter on my Overkill Solar 8S BMS. Nice to see the BMS accurate within .4°F of it's low temp cutoff parameter threshold.
Curious to know how the frigid conditions in the lower 48 this week are effecting others, regarding their LiFePO4 battery charging.
It may be time to consider a heated or at least insulated battery wrap. I've lived in NH, and am no stranger to cold, but was not equipped with a solar system at the time.
Happy Holidays to all!
 
Prattville, AL checking in... also 14 this morning. I chickened out and turned my LiFePO4 bank off in the RV Thursday night. The inverter/charger is plugged into shore power and being supported by/charging AGMs until the temperature returns to "normal".
 
I have my batteries and inverter in an insulated 3x5 shed with a 500 watt heater on a thermostat. Its been super cold recently and a lot of gloomy days so the heater couldnt keep up and low temp sensor shut the batteries and were really low anyway. We don't live there, its a part time (summer) getaway. Very little draw otherwise. Anyway, went down yesterday and fired up the back up generator to warm the shed and charge the batteries. Sunny and 20F here today!
 
Was 14f here in Maine this morning too! My lifepo's-and an AGM back up bank-are located in the "basement" of my 38' motorhome that resides in a 44x16 foot uninsulated garage. My 1st winter living in this arrangement, I thought everything in the RVs basement would freeze, to include the plumbing. I stuck heating pads on the bottom of my grey, black and fresh water storage tanks and a couple thermostatically controlled 250watt ceramic heaters in the basement as well. Turns out that none of that was needed. Apparently, as long as I keep the main living space heated, enough heat radiates down through the floor to prevent the basement from reaching freezing temps. According to the wifi temp monitoring gadget I installed a few weeks ago, the basement never goes below 46.8f on the coldest of nights. During the day, when temps creep back toward 30 or more outside, the basement gets up to about 50 or 51f. I still keep all my back up heaters in place though. Its not like theyre drawing any juice so they aint hurting anything being there and sure do decrease my stressing about freeze ups!
 
Meanwhile...North of the 49th...it was -2C today, 28F ! again.
For the third week in January this is "normally" rare, as I would expect -25C (-13F) or lower for this time of year.
yet, I have only seen three cold nights this whole winter, the rest of the time it has been surprisingly mild, lots of days above freezing even.
When I saw in the news those low temps in the lower 48 over christmas, it made me think the weather is up-side-down this year!

Since we "normally" have 5 months of cold weather, my system & rack batteries are in a well-insulated, heated workshop, not far from the pellet furnace, and never see lower than 15C (59F). I would think a good back up system for you guys down south would be those heating pads like the guy from Maine uses for his water tanks, and put them right on the racks or enclose the battery bank into an insulated box and put the pads inside the box.
I wonder if we should 'expect' to see more of these cold snaps like this in the future, and therefore it would be worth the time/effort to have things set up for warming the batteries during an event. Glad to hear the BMS's protected the batteries that did see freezing temps.
 
Yeah... when the snap hit i was without power thanks to duke energy's randomness...

No easy way to accomplish anything... i kept the place warm and lit, but seriously annoyed by the construction errors...
 
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