Maintaining Connections
16 September 2015 | Hillsborough, Carriacou
Lynn
Over the past while, we have noticed that our batteries have not been doing particularly well. Granted, it is the rainy season, so the sunshine is not quite as plentiful as it normally is, but that has never been much of a problem before. Last night as I crawled into bed, I noticed that the batteries were showing 12.05 v. Huston, we have a problem.
Our batteries are 2 years old. We maintain them regularly, and keep a close watch on their fluid levels (we used lead acid batteries, for reasons too numerous to get into right now; I am also sure we've blogged about it before). Ken looked at them today, and they all looked good, with the fluid levels good, and the specific gravity was quite acceptable, with no major differences between the cells. What he did discover was that the charge from one of the solar panel charge controllers wasn't getting into the batteries.
We have a golden rule to trouble shooting: Thou shalt always check the connections. And darned if Ken didn't find a crispy critter between the battery bank and the regulator, part of the feedback loop. This untinned, non-marine length of copper and insulation was green, corroded, and generally not up to the job any longer. When he was installing it, Ken attempted to do a little tinning with the solder, but we have found that the moisture can still wick up the cable with great ease. We have had this happen a couple of times, even when the best quality adhesive-lined heat shrink connectors are used. The picture above, while not great is the wire in question.
Now that wire has been changed out... And still there is a problem. But where one crunchy wire can be found, there may be others. The circuit breaker may also be a culprit. Or a combination of things.
Fortunately, when we installed the new solar panels, we put them on a separate controller from the older ones. This was done for three reasons. The first reason was that the old controller wasn't going to be able to handle the increased current. The second reason was that it was easier just to add another controller than to combine everything. The third, and right now one we are glad we took into consideration, was redundancy. While the bulk of our panels can't charge the batteries, we still have 170 watts of charging ability that IS working. So while Ken trouble shoots the other 270 watts, we aren't completely without solar.
I'll get back to you when we finally find out what it is.
Addendum: Ken had taken the controller out of its spot to get a better look at it. There was a trouble shooting LED on that could signify a few problems. After poking around, Ken shook his head and decided to remount the $&@#ing thing to think about it. After he remounted it, it worked just fine.
We think it may be an intermittent in the wiring harness at the terminal strip, but right now, we are seeing charge rates that we haven't noticed for a long time! The wiring harness can be looked at later.