hours of storage. For 10 yrs. it operated without a hitch until I failed to add water to the battery and it went down. I bought the same batteries, hooked them up fully charged but I am unable to get the running time that I used to. I would have stand by power for several hours on end and now all I get out of it is a few minutes, even though the LED lights indicate it started at 100% charged. When turned on the LED lights will go from 100% to 50% in less than 5 minutes. I had the batteries load checked and it proved to be ok. I am at a total loss as to what to do to get this back and running. Thank you. Roman Kulzer Phone: 320-352-6976
Electronics - Others - Xantrex Technology - Trace Series Inverter / Charger 1500w
Answers & Comments
Hi and welcome to FixYa, I am Kelly
On a new deep cycle battery you should perform an initial charging cycle. The batteries are dry charged simply by adding electrolytes. Every deep cycle battery manufacturer states this in their instructions:
Charge the batteries before placing the batteries in service.
You should do a trickle charge on each of the batteries individually over an 8 - 10 hour period. This will activate all of the surface area of the battery plates. When the battery is fully charged it should have specific gravity reading of 1.265 using a battery hydrometer / tester. You will get that on a brand new battery but that specific gravity reading is only coming from a very small active / working area on the battery plates. Hence you have a very short working duty cycle at the moment.
After your trickle charging session.... wait 1 hour to test the specific gravity of the battery.
I am certain that if you do an extended INITIAL charging period on all 3 of the batteries that your working duty cycle will return to near normal time periods. Let me know if this does not work. There is more that can be checked. For the moment just do the initial charging session on all 3 batteries "WITHOUT using your inverter" as the charging source.
Once thing to note... if the batteries were ever tipped in excess of 45 degrees in shipment they may be lacking the necessary electrolyte level for the batteries to function normally. I.e if they were tipped and then someone just added distilled water / battery water. The batteries will never perform properly.
Lastly.... if the NEW batteries were serviced with electrolyte and water but never initially charged
then you many have a split level battery electrical level. I.e. the electrolyte and water have never initially mixed properly. The too will cause the symptom you describe. Charging the batteries for an extended time causes bubbles in the battery and does and excellent job of properly mixing initial electrolyte levels.
Probably more information than you needed but, anyone using deep cycle batteries for the first time should be aware of the above.
Thanks for choosing FixYa,
Kelly
Hi again Roman,
I am not sure what kind of laod test you did on the batteries but it involves doing several specific gravity test over an extended time. If you need help with that information I can get it to you.
Here lies what I still think is the problem. IF you charged the batteries as a battery bank (I.e all 8 of them) vs charging them individually with a charger (other than your invetter) your going to have the symptoms your having now. EACH battery needs to be fast charged to a specific gravity reading of 1.22 or 1.23 then trickle charged after that for another 8 hours.
If after all of the above the problem still persists the inverter(s) {Hard to believe both of them} have a problem in the charging circuit. (Usually a capacitor / resistor related issue on the contrrol board of the inverter) You would note a swollen capacitor and probably a resistor that has been very hot on the control board.
What your describing as a fast drain and fast charge of the battery bank is all related to EACH battery and the internal plate functions of those individual batteries. At the moment your batteries appear to functioning as they are not properly charged.
You could charge the batteries as a battery bank BUT. EACH battery needs to be charged with about 14.7 AMPS. As a bank fo batteries you would have had a 117.6 Amp charging load for the initial charge. (I.e an AWESOME battery charger!)
My goal here is not the money! It is to get your inverter(s) working properly again.
Kelly
I would look for a wiring issue as batteries should not charge back in 5 minutes, that would be magic if they did. I suspect a voltage drop with the wiring. check the voltage at the batteries and at the inverter and see if you have excessive voltage drop at the inverter when it's in use.