Battery Bank 24V My Big Costly Mistake!

OK I did it to myself by being complacent ,This will hurt me big time in the long run. What not to do, don't believe every thing U here is OK to do. So here I show what I did so U don't. I'm feeling pretty dumb right now but its to late. I wish I had taken some pictures of inside my battery in each cell every month. This is what it looks like as of today . I will update results soon.

[MeJonAgain]

Another costly mistake you might want to avoid is putting a fire extinguisher behind the thing that you fear will be where a fire comes from. If your battery bank catches or spews acid, you will not be able to even reach the extinguisher.

[mikeyoung]

Good video of the maintenance of a battery bank.

On the safety side I would recommend this. Never open all of the cells at one time. The fumes they are producing in such a small room can be very hazardous, not to mention, if there was a spark created from all the other electrical apparatus in that room, it could very well cause an explosion. Finally, move the fire extinguisher to the outside of the room. Last thing you want is to reach over the fire to get access to the extinguisher.

[Auditing.northern.N.Y.]

Takes a real man to take ownership of his f*** ups. Most people would blame something else.

[PalmettoParatrooper]

Making mistakes is how we learn so if you're dumb and tough you'll end up smart and tougher.

[SyberPrepper]

Thanks for sharing all this. You don't know how many people it will help over time.

[terryharms]

I thank you for sharing, I am just setting up my motorhome for solar, And I need to learn all I can,
Thanks Terry

[pepepepito]

Friend dont worry it just battery, can be replace, so dont feel bad. what i see in your battery is not enough eq and wires are to long . try to make wires smaller distance

[MrBugsier]

the older the battery's the more you have to equalize them, keeping the sulphation off! even more in solar applications., eqalizing is way more inportant as people think.
take care, and sorry to here you have this problem.oh, and small tip, keep the caps on while equalizing.

[yannicklocas]

Happened to me, but I was able to bring back my batteries to good condition, with an equalize every two day for two full months. But I've learned a lot with this mistake...

[ElRazTheGreat]

Based on my experience the Midnite classic voltage and amps readings are incorrect. You have to check the settings and the voltage, amps readings with a calibrated volt amp reader. Mine was 0.5 volt below of what the classic was registering, also the classic does not have a voltage reading sensor! The L16 batteries should be equalized at least every two weeks. Be Well, Raz

[GoingOffGrid]

it happens to even the best of us man, hope you get get most of the life back. thanks for sharing.

[offgridinthepacificnorthwe]

Greetings from Oregon, I know that you now have a  Battery Extra installed on your system and have recovered your batteries. My question is was the heavy sulfation  from insufficient charging? Not high enough absorb voltage and absorb cycle time? My batteries are 3 years old and there is no visible sulfation on the plates. I have my absorb voltage at 30 volts and absorb time at 4 hours. I use a Trimectric battery monitor and a refractometer to confirm its accuracy. The one thing I have done is make sure I don't let the batteries go below 80% SOC and no more than 3 days in in between a full charge. My system was a off grid 1400 watt array with a Tristar PWM with a diesel backup. Since then I have added 2 more arrays with a Midnite classic 200 and a Outback FM 60. I am experimenting with the absorb time and return amp settings to get my specific gravity to 1.285I checked it the other day and it was 1.30, way to high and may cause shedding. I have my return amps set at 12 and I will see after a couple days if its right. Chris DIYer has the same desulfator as you have with similar results. I would get one but all my plates look like the day I installed the bank.

[phillipjoeborowitz]

dude, dont beat yourself up. wish i knew a tenth of of what your doing here. not really in a position to start a solar project. but am alwaysready for school. came on line for some harley rebuild tips, and ended up here, sooo, back to the grind. quick question, are there any battery inovations that u are currently following or know of worth looking into? thanks man. grab a beer n watch some ball. youve earned it.

[MrSummitville]

Whether you have Water Saver-Caps or not, has NOTHING to do with how often you Equalize. Nothing! YOU need to Equalize often because YOUR Battery Bank is not being recharged to 100% SOC every night = a very bad thing. Once that sulfate hardens, you will have permanently lost capacity. Cloudy Electrolyte is not a good thing. Your PV Array is too small for your large battery bank. At 50% DOD, you need 6 continuous hours of FULL SUNLIGHT for Bulk Mode plus 1 - 2 hours of strong sun for (30 Volt) Absorb Mode plus 1 hour of low sun for Float Mode to recharge you battery bank to 100% SOC each night. You barely have enough PV Panels to do this, on a good day. So, now where are you getting the WATTS to run your daytime loads? You REQUIRE EQ often because your PV array is WAY TOO SMALL. You need to stop removing more more Daily Watt-Hours from the battery bank vs what your PV Array can put back in. You battery bank will fail early....

[alltheboost]

I've been doing a bunch off research on going off grid and I think just based off videos like this and the way lead battery are I'm going to use lifepo4 or lithium ion. It's really painful to watch people end up in a predicament like this and I could totally see myself doing the same thing. Hopefully the prices for Batteries will keep coming down. Thank you for making the video best of luck to you in your future endeavors.

[ChrisDIYerOklahoma]

Oh man...hopefully they will be alright. They look exactly like my Trojans when I skipped a monthly EQ. Everything seems to be alright now...but, the brown milky electrolyte sure caught my eye. I ran mine down to 24.1 all summer (with load at that voltage). Edit: Just re-checked all mine...and am hitting them with another EQ blast for an hour while I got good sun. Took off the Water Miser caps and looked down inside each cell...they all look really clean. Getting about 31.6 volts EQing right now...no loads. My thinking is that the L16 size batteries like ours are pretty tough. Have you ever "bumped" them? ie, "shook" them a little to knock off the deposits?

[Photostrated]

Where is the last part of the video? I didn't get to see the

[MrBrymstond]

Most think solar is the easy way out, but they need constant maintenance, bummer, sorry to see this.

[tonyjordan]

Thanks for the 'Heads up'. Best of luck to you in the future.

[louishibbs]

topped up & equalized every 14 days ...voltage regulators are always the culprit..lead acid requires a topping phase on a regular basis..