It has been a while since I last posted, I've been busying trying to get my homestead ready for the impending winter. My uncle is replacing his battery bank because a couple months ago he noticed it not holding a charge properly, He had his battery guy come out and determined the bank was dying and fast. Apparently they had been getting to hot in the nevada sun despite having a insulated shed with a cooler to house them. Apparently some of the cells actually swelled and bulged the casings a little. So now he is having trouble keeping them as charged as they should. 56Volts seems to be as high as he can get them even with the generator when before they could go as high as 62v? (I think don't quote me) Anyway apparently he has 9 dead or dying cells in the whole bank. He is having a new bank built and in a few months when we does the switch he is giving me the old bank if I want it.
Here are the stats on his bank as it sits:
They are this type:
http://www.solarelectricsupply.com/Batteries/GNB-Absolyte-IIP/index.htmlAbsolyte 2p 2v sealed industrial/telcom cells (these specific 2p cells are no longer sold, they are the old style from a few years back and no longer listed)
48v bank
1000Ah (when new, now who knows?)
6 years old, used off-grid to power house with automatic generator backup in southern Nevada, 3Kwh Solar system, puts out 18-20Kwh in summer per day and 20-22Kwh in winter.
Despite getting to hot apparently I think they have been well cared for, professionally maintained/monitored. Despite a mishap a couple years ago where my uncle pulled a small 24V load (pump) on half the bank which imbalanced them a bit but apparently bounced back after a few equalizations.
So this is a big bank by my standards, it weights about 2800lbs with the racks. I could never afford a bank new of this type, new price ranges from 10-14,000 I believe. They are rated for up to and over 20 years when well cared for (so I am told).
So they are mine for the taking... sounds pretty sweet right? BUT there is a catch...
I have to drive 5,000 miles round trip to get them (maybe on waste cooking oil to cut the expense way down if I finish converting the truck).
So, thats a big catch... I can swing the time/cost to getting them, but I've never worked with this type of battery and don't well know how long they will last. Giving my estimated needs at my homestead this bank originally is twice as big as I was planing on getting and likely 3x bigger than I would have wound up with. I have been unable to find some NiFe cells to play with and because of possibly getting rejected for the home-owner tax rebate I thought I was getting. So the system I would really likely wind up with at this point is 8 new 6v cells (trojan L16 style) but probably a little cheaper (exides...
Because I can get them for around 3,000$ new and that really is about all I can afford I suspect.
I had wanted to go 48V on the bank, to get the most out of the charge controller and most AC charge out of the inverter. Assuming I couldn't repair any of these 2v cells and I had to cut the bank in half to a 24V system. It still sounds like it could be a better/bigger/longer lived bank than even getting 8 new budget 6v deep cycles.
So the question is what do I do?
Would you go and get them? What pitfalls could I face that I might not know about?