Today I went under the bus and removed the old batteries. Removing the oldest I thought I'd try the second oldest on the charge controller. As I suspected, it was stronger than the oldest. Still not worth messing about with though.
I have to say it was nice being able to lie on clean gravel. It was also far more uncomfortable and knobbly than the soil I was lying on before. I might have to start putting a yoga mat down to lie on. Despite it all being clean, I took my usual precaution of wearing a mask. I don't need a bad stomach from breathing bacteria.
Before starting on battery removal, I did the final painting of my battery holder insert. That went pretty well. I got one side painted and dried then the other side before it began to spot with rain. It didn't get installed this weekend because this weekend I'm still testing my new battery.
As I didn't want to mount the battery straight away, it being such an unknown quantity, I connected it to one of my existing battery connectors on the end of a 20 foot cable. That way, if it catches fire, it's away from the bus. Initial testing went very well.
The first test was the lightbulb closest to the fuse box. That went on without hesitation of flicking the switch this way and that. Clearly the problem I was getting there was related to the lead-acid batteries. Next I flicked the extraction fans on and then off a couple of times with no problem whatsoever. Usually with the lead-acid batteries the system would shut down briefly and then show me an error message. That did not happen. The fans went on straight away. The system did not shut down. Checking voltmeters around the bus, the voltage tallied with what the charge controller was telling me. It thus looks very much as though the problems I have been experiencing were down to some really awful batteries.
Speaking of batteries - there are the culprits. One (on the left) is a Harbor Freight Thunderbolt Solar battery and the other is a Duracell battery. What surprised me was the amount of dust on top of them, given the bus hasn't moved in the past 2 years. I suppose some must have been wind-bourne.
One of the first things to do after installing the new battery and turning on the charge controller was to set the parameters. I had to look that up. I set the battery type to lithium and hope the rest will automatically set itself. Setting to lithium was challenging. The online manual showed 4 or 5 blobs on their image of the controller screen. Enlarging them it was possible to see the rightmost was lithium. Looking on the actual screen I saw the same 4 or 5 blobs. Without pressing my nose against the controller and using a magnifying glass, I could not see what the blobs said. All I could see was black blobs. That tells you everything you could ever wish to know about electronics - not made for ease of use. So, I set the battery type to the rightmost blob. There was no indication I was setting battery type or what I was setting to be honest. I just blindly followed the manual and it seemed to work. I have no idea if I should have set anything else.
I have found solar power and batteries to be a huge disappointment so far. I've kept throwing money in, trying something different to make it work better. My original plan was for no electrical power - just have screens over windows for ventilation to keep it cool. I like my lighting and didn't fancy having to run for batteries every week or so. I do suspect though that putting a big lithium battery wired to lights etc and set to charge off the alternator would have been the best solution. I'm hoping that with a lithium battery or perhaps two, my power problems will be at an end. It would be nice to put my bluetooth module on the charge controller but it was sent with the wrong connector. Having said that, it has 4 wires. Two must be power connectors. That just leaves two to identify - one could be transmit and the other receive. When I have time I'll cut the silly connector on it, off and put spade connectors then put wires on an RJ45 connector and see which the power lines are from the charge controller then connect the power line. After that it's a case of working out what the other lines are. Eventually I should get a solution.
Next weekend when I'm sure the new battery isn't going to catch fire, I'll weld together a flame shield and install that as well as the new battery. While I'm at it, I'll build a battery cradle for another battery. I might as well have two.
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