Charging Older T105's

[ravenswings]

Have older T105's in a set of 24, wired in series of 4 for use with trace 2440 inverter...lately, charging doesn't last. Charging from generator peaks early and drops fast, it seems. Do i need to reset input amps higher or lower to help batteries get a longer lasting charge.

Batteries haven't been equalized for a few years..to do so, can l do all of them at once with a 6500 Honda or do they need to be done in sets?

[Volvo farmer]

Six parallel strings?  That might lead to problems. Things are likely to get out of balance, and equalizing the whole mess together isn't going to fix that.

I'd equalize each string separately, then go through all the batteries with a hydrometer and a voltmeter and check for bad/weak cells.

[ravenswings]

Checking several of the cells proved to be what l had guessed, many barely tickled the needle on the hyydrometer, even after charging. So, the bank will be replaced...after nearly 10 years of faithful and satisfactory service, the old T105's get to retire.

[ghurd]

Might find a couple are still passable for a separate bank?

24 is a slew of batteries.
Might consider upsizing the new bank to something like L-16s or L-16HCs.
G-

[SparWeb]

What about the other ones - that might be okay?
Why not try picking the "good ones", charging them together as a set, the equalizing them, adding water, floating them out for a while, and see what you've got then?
Like Ghurd says, before you throw it all away, perhaps some of it is still "good enough" for some other purpose.
Ten years is a ripe old age, of course...

[ghurd]

Ten years is a ripe old age, of course...

Darn right.
Stories like these make me feel less crazy when I say how old the T-105s at the shop are.

If 1 in 6 are OK, that still leaves something usable, for something?
G-

[Volvo farmer]

Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. He could toss 4 of the worst batteries and still have 5/6 of his original storage.