SITUATION:
· HPV 22B solar charger
· 3 – 85 w solar panels, 1 of which gets about 4 hours of morning sun
· I always plug in to shore power at my storage unit and set the charger on “shore power” as opposed to “dry camp”
· I picked up the LD yesterday and noticed on the LinkLite that the bats were down to 74% of charge. At home I plugged in and charging began.
· Checking the bats, they took about 1/3 gal. of distilled water. Normally, I only have to add a small amt of water
· Returning to storage and after plugging in I noticed there was no power. I assume the breaker was tripped and reported so to mgr. Don’t know how long power had been off, but long enough for the bats to get pretty low. I had not checked the LD for 3-4 weeks.
QUESTIONS:
· Could the batteries have been damaged considering how low the water got? Should I check with a hydrometer?
· What caused so much water to “boil off” so fast over the last few weeks? This has never happened before.
Power is still off so I switched to “dry camp” to see if the exposed panel will charge the batteries.
Chris
Chris, unfortunately that charge controller is not automatic, so determining if the batteries are properly charging up and maintaining a charge without excessive loss of electrolyte will require some one-on-one attention to the process. If you can park it at home so you can monitor it frequently over several hours and a couple of days, it will be easier to diagnose if your batteries are failing, or if it some other issue. If your Link-Lite says you have reached 100%, you should at that time switch to 'shore power' mode to see if charge holds up. Check the Link-Lite at night to see if there are any phantom loads that could be an issue.
Steve
Chris, unfortunately that charge controller is not automatic, so determining if the batteries are properly charging up and maintaining a charge without excessive loss of electrolyte will require some one-on-one attention to the process. If you can park it at home so you can monitor it frequently over several hours and a couple of days, it will be easier to diagnose if your batteries are failing, or if it some other issue. If your Link-Lite says you have reached 100%, you should at that time switch to 'shore power' mode to see if charge holds up. Check the Link-Lite at night to see if there are any phantom loads that could be an issue.
Steve
Thanks, Steve. I just found the tripped breaker and got power going. Seems the facility's manager could not find it. It's charging and I will check levels tomorrow. I'm still curious as to what caused the battery water loss when the power was off. Any thoughts?
Chris