Comment by William Walter Francis III on September 1, 2012 at 10:37am

 what type of batteries are u using here?

where did u get them?

Comment by Chris Harder on September 23, 2012 at 10:39am

hi, Tom...

I thought anything 13 and above meant the 12 v batteries were fully charged... 

Twelve (12) Volt batteries should charge to 13 Volts for a full charge. (HF manual)  am I misunderstanding the read out on the controller; is it just showing what's coming from the panels?

Comment by Renewable Ray on September 23, 2012 at 11:57am

Hey Chris, not really. As Dale reminded us this week on one of Daves threads.....

Depends on the batteries. Usually 14.4 to 14.6 is topped off absorb..Then depending on the charge controller it switches to float mode voltage of 13.6 in normal situations.

 

The HF manual is just trying to keep it simple.

Comment by Chris Harder on September 23, 2012 at 12:42pm

Hi, Ray,

 

Thanks for the response!  I'm very new, both here, and to solar in general.  Our concern was the potential for a longer term power outage and having to deal with a septic tank pump not operating.  So, after watching a ton of Youtube videos of people using the HF panels in all kinds of situations, I thought I would break down and get a set, and start finding out about them.  We have one of the new sets, and we have two of HF's batteries (35ah 12v) along with their 1500/3000w inverter.  We looked and called all over the place before we bought their batteries.  No one seemed to know what a deep cycle battery was (except the marine batteries at Autozone).  I even called the local golf course, and they didn't know WHERE to get batteries, even though they have carts.  They suggested I call a local golf cart shop, and that guy was out of his mind as he wanted $800 a piece for his 6v batteries!! Must have gold inside, instead of lead!

 

So, of course, after we bought them and got them set up, I found your website!  It always works that way!  Back to the batteries; ours have never gone above 13.3 or below 12.6, even having a radio on the converter all day, yesterday, along with having both of their lights on, as well.  I have a chart that I found... I thought on this website, but, maybe not, that has percentage charged matched up with voltage, and the top line on that chart has 12.7 volts as 100%.  If I disconnect the batteries, the reading on the controller will jump up to 14-16, bouncing around a little, between them, but the red lights come reporting low voltage...

I'm sure I'll have lots of questions, as everyone else has or had, and I'm looking forward to learning more about all of this stuff...  like those panels you guys have on Amazon... :)

Comment by Renewable Ray on September 23, 2012 at 5:19pm

Your welcome, and welcome to the forum.

Don't feel like your purchase of the two HF batteries is a waste. Sounds like a great start to what I call a hybrid system. My suggestion, when you get your golf cart battery bank going keep these HF batteries going as a separate bank and install a switch in between them. You'll find a lot of guys and gals doing that here.

And on that "batteries disconnected" voltage....ignore that. It has no bearing on what the batteries or the panels are doing.

Comment by Tom95076 on September 23, 2012 at 11:55pm

Ray and Chris, thanks for keeping up on this site..Chris just for sharing your battery story and Ray for keeping up with everything.

I just wanted to make it clear that I have two HF kits and I created these videos to show you what to expect after you think you might have buyers remorse and then you catch one or two of my videos and realize you really need to work at a solar systems. It wont come to you,  You need to go get it.  Ray and all of the gang really spend time calculating and informing everyone.  So, I figured I would be the crazy guy trying different stuff to contribute to this forum.
If you notice the HF Charge controller and what I'm doing wont make sense until you don't have any sun light to float the charge like Dale pointed out.  You should get a volt meter and make sure your reference voltage checks out when it's not using the panels to skew the readings.  ie. I have been running on a dead 12V battery for months and the inverter only turns on when there is full sunlight.. Is this the correct way to uses the system? No, but sooner or later you be will wondering why your battery is reading 13.6 with full sunlight and die after 2 minutes of use in the night.

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