Making BANK!

[Lowdown3]

Did the annual "breaking of the bank" not too long ago and sorted things out again after realizing all wasn't totally well. After a while living on batteries, you pay attention to weather patterns, power usage and the general feel of the system enough to start to sense when things aren't perfect.

The process gets a little complicated trying to separate "the sheep from the goats" or in this case, batteries that may have a bad cell in the whole lot of them.

1 bad cell in a six volt battery like this can drag down a string of 4 batteries which in turn can slowly drag down the whole bank.

It's the "weak link in the chain" type of deal.

Common and classic view has always been to throw out the baby AND the bathwater when it comes to this sort of thing. In other words, replace the ENTIRE BANK at one go.

Back during the first changeout I did just that, and when batteries were much cheaper then, it set back "only"(pun intended) $3,000. for 20 new L16's

You'd be lucky to get 10 L16's for $3K today

So after that first changeout, I started mixing "old" and "new" and broke the cardinal sin of battery banks. People were pissed and my "battery of the month" club card was revoked for such an egregious act of defiance and non conformity to classical thinking. LOL

So replacing 4 at at time is much more palatable, especially at close to $300. each now, than replacing 20+ at $300. each.

Ended up this go around with 28 L16's in the bank. Thankfully I've done a lot of little nit picky crap lately in that area including tearing out the old wooden parts of the battery box. This became a necessity as the original plan was for 20 batteries. Then it looked jury rigged when I went to 24. I nursed it along for a while and finally had the time to rip the whole thing out and start anew. Remember the "3 R's of the homestead" thread? Yep I was finally to the "ahh screw it, I'm gonna rip all this out!" phase. :) Using the opportunity of getting them all out of the area, I arranged them where the oldest are up front and the newest are in the back. Course this changed again recently with the addition of 8. Be sure to use a magic marker to date each batteries. A little dry erase board on the wall near the inverter allows me to write notes to remind myself when I last PM'ed the bank. Thereby cutting out the mental "I just did that" thought.

So I'm not 110% sure I rooted out all of the offending "goats" per se. I'll continue to watch and note usage, weather, meter readings on the inverter. Theoretically we should have a boatload of power- more than ever in storage- so if we have problems with any less than 3-4 days of no sun, I'll know there is still show "threshing" to do on part of the bank.

[qrprat77]

Cool!the nerd in me is really interested in seeing how the mixing of your batteries goes.Just to confirm:These are :1. Same brand2. Same capacitydo you know if they are different lot numbers or not?

[protus]

fwiw,,,we mixed 105/106's all the time. that with constant drain/re charge and use(golf carts)....1 batt in 6 ok..but not much more.
in other words if the majority of batts is old expect less that great performance...if you have 28 and say 6 of them are old i doubt you'll see much drop...but on a smaller system you would! just what uive seen messing with the 6 and 8 volt deals at work.

[610Alpha]

Have you heard about the NiFe batteries (edison battery)?

I heard about this battery on a podcast and wondered if you anyone else had heard about them.

These batteries come with a 10 year warranty. http://ironedison.com/images/Spec%20...010%20Year.pdf

They are much more expensive right now. 12 v with 100 Ah of capacity is $970.00 http://ironedison.com/nickel-iron-ni-fe-battery

http://ironedison.com/

History on this battery type:

http://ironedison.com/images/Spec%20Sheets/Historical%20Documents/1914%20-%20Edison%20Manual%20of%20Storage%20Battery%20Practice.pdf

http://ironedison.com/images/Spec%20Sheets/Historical%20Documents/1924%20-%20Tour%20of%20the%20Original%20Edison%20Battery%20Factory.pdf

http://ironedison.com/images/Spec%20Sheets/Historical%20Documents/1925%20-%20Operation%20and%20Care%20of%20the%20Edison%20Storage%20Battery.pdf

I am interested in hearing other thoughts on these batteries.

[1Admin]

Cool!the nerd in me is really interested in seeing how the mixing of your batteries goes.Just to confirm:These are :1. Same brand2. Same capacitydo you know if they are different lot numbers or not?

Same brand and model. Definitely different lots as 4 were purchased a year ago, 8 were just purchased and the remaining 16 are from 2010-2012

This isn't the first time we've mixed old and new. It's never been the problem people make it out to be.

[1Admin]

610- that's a really low amp rating for that high of price IMO.

I've gotten 8 years out of flooded lead acid L16's with a much higher amp rating. Paid $279. each for these last ones, highest I've paid yet.

[610Alpha]

610- that's a really low amp rating for that high of price IMO.

I've gotten 8 years out of flooded lead acid L16's with a much higher amp rating. Paid $279. each for these last ones, highest I've paid yet.

That is a good price too...Altestore has L16's from $355 to $360 to call for price

That is 1 year better than what they had as the best scenario...see this pic of what they sent me.



From this chart one would deduce that they are replacing all the batteries at the same time and the best case of replacing every 7 years. Now if the batteries lasted say 50 years then that might be something.

I do like that they are bringing back old technology and if they don't do planned obsolescence (google Centennial Light, I am going back to incandescent) with their batteries then they might be on to something.

I think they are trying to show their batteries have more power in this picture:



If this info is true and accurate then NiFe batteries do appear to have more power. I am not recommending these batteries just sharing information on them.