NO Voltage or HZ reading on meters

steelypip said:

No on 1 - you should see battery stack voltage below about 29 volts at all times. If the batteries are OK, you're cooking off electrolyte, yes on 2: if it's the old-school mechanical-movement hour meter then it probably had grungy points which were 'surprised' into working with a combination of higher than normal voltage and vibration.

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#1 They are new batteries. Dummy here, what does it mean to cook off electrolyte? Do I need to do something to correct what is going on?

ETA: I guess I am boiling the batteries? Does that mean the DC regulator is bad?

You've basically got 2x a car starting/charging system here. So all the voltages are twice as high. A 12v lead-acid battery is fully charged at about 12.8 volts. To get it to charge, you have to put about 2 more volts in than the battery voltage, so charging voltage on a car is specd in the range of 13.8-14.2 V.

A fully charged 24V battery is going to be about 25.5 volts (with minor fudge factors depending on battery chemistry). Charging voltage is going to be ~+4 V again, which gets you 28-29 V.

If you apply more voltage to a lead-acid cell than it can accept (usually because it's just about fully charged), the excess current is used up hydrolyzing the water in the battery into hydrogen and oxygen and in making the battery hotter. The longer the set runs above rated voltage, the more water you're going to lose from the batteries.

You need that water in the cells, not in the atmosphere. So you'll want to check electrolyte levels and add DI/distilled water as necessary. And look into why the regulator is not doing its job and is regulating high - check the connections to ground in particular, and the voltage at the regulator's reference leads versus that at the batteries.

Of course, your panel voltmeter might be junk - they often are. Check it with a good multimeter and see if there's still a problem.

As for your question about why the charge voltage was higher with load, it was probably a function of time, rather than load. If the batteries were not fully charged initially, they would have done a pretty good job of regulating the charge voltage, since the alternator puts out only a few amps. Then after the generator had been running a while, the batteries reached full charge and the voltage climbed.

The AC power and the DC charging systems of the generator are separate, so under normal conditions, there would be no reason that the amount of load on the AC side would do anything to the DC side.

Slightly off topic but related to battery charge voltage. Any idea why 24 volt Solargizers charge at about 37 volts?

Any idea how to determine if the four I have automatically cut off at appropriate time or continue to overcharge and drive out eletrolite? I bought them new 2 years ago and have not set them up but am about to. I seem to recall discussion a couple years ago about early ones being an overcharge problem. Were there model number changes?

Also seem to recall 24 volt models can be used on 12 volt systems, ie, boat.
Jerry

Jerry, do you know which model solargizer you have? The early ones only provided a high frequency pulse to help break down sulificaiton, and no meaningful charging, the later ones incorporated minimal (5 or 6 watt) solar charging in also. I also suspect that the high frequency pulse may be throwing off your meter readings, if we get some bright sunlight today I will try to take a reading on the one I have on my MEP-701a in the back yard. As to overcharging with these solargizers I think it would be at a minimal level if at all, given the low power, I found a report online a couple of years ago that the army did using solargizers on MEP-002a and MEP-003a generators stationed in GA. It involved late model Solargizers installed on a number of generators without use for a fairly long period of time (at least 6 months, although I think it ran a couple of years with testing every 6 months) and the generators left in different lighting conditions. As I recall the study showed that the solargizers were effective in extending battery life in most installations, and was able to exceed self discharge losses in all, but one or two of the test generators. (As I recall the ones that failed to perform were on a MEP-003a in a mostly shaded location, this was also partly blamed on the larger batteries on the MEP-003a).

Ike

Ike,
I have four IS24L 735x150 units (green and bought new, produced in 2002). Also one older blue unit that came with a GL purchase. All it says is 735x160.

I think you are right about tricking my multimeter. Just tried a different meter and got different results which I haven't figured out yet. Late and heavy clouds this afternoon.
Jerry