When the Battery Bank Robs the Money Bank.

Going off the grid might be the dream of many but leading a modern life with gadgets and gizmo's means you are going to need to generate some power and store it. Sailing about and anchoring out means that we need to generate and store power to run our Fridge, Freezer, VHF Radio, AIS, Chartplotter, Auto-helm and Nav instruments and Lighting. During daylight hours and when the sun is shining our solar panels help but cloudy rainy days of only 10 hours reduce the chance of being power-neutral. Our batteries get a real workout. The Bloke is fanatical about checking the amps in/ out and 'at the battery'; so much so, that I tease him about being an Amp Nazi. Only when we are connected to the grid do we not need to monitor our power usage so closely. That's when we can go MAAAAAD with the power!

Happiness can be found in the battery bank.

Lately, the batteries have been losing voltage more rapidly than in the past. We put it down to having been off 240v shore power for a lengthy time. A phone call to Marvelous in Pt Lincoln for some advice suggested that some extended charging sessions might help. Hours and hours of charging with the Honda generator for 6-7 hours at a time on consecutive days only 'sort of' helped. The Bloke wanted to see if being connected to 240v for a few days might make a difference and arranged for the batteries to be professionally load tested after a few days in the marina. He didn't trust our own Made in China tester.

It was confirmed that 2 of our 5 x 95 ampere-hour batteries were beginning to fail. What to do? Replace the 2 or replace all 5 house batteries with AGM's of a higher capacity. How much longer could we eek them out? That's like asking 'How long is a piece of string'? We've gone for new batteries and an upgrade to boot.

So, while the batteries were still uncovered and all the bed pulled apart, calls were made, prices compared and considered, the order placed and presto within the hour new batteries were delivered and the old ones taken away. There is no messing about with my Bloke, 'No better time' he said!

   

Captain Paul, who is a specialist in 'things electrical', suggested that there is some talk that the batteries in battery banks, connected in parallel, do not discharge evenly even though theoretically they should. Where the positive and negatives are connected might actually make a difference. The batteries that were letting us down would support this notion. To cover all bases, we are going to make doubly sure that we have the Smart Charger set to the correct battery type as well adjusting the power take-off points. We might even periodically rearrange them. 

All being well a bright future awaits. This will be 3rd time lucky and this battery bank of 5 x 120ampere-hour AGM's should last us the rest of the trip. We hope so and so does the Money Bank!