[Sebring]

I recall Sanyo displaying their solar AC in Bangalore about 20-25 years back. BPL had a tie-up with them and the Japanese company had this unit displayed at their key showroom on Brigade Road. I was really fascinated by this tech (this was even before we had those rooftop solar heaters). The AC was prohibitively expensive (Price was in Yen). And, Bangalore hardly had any ACs those days due to its cool clime. But that tech is as old as they come and was even commercialized in Japan, those days

Originally Posted by Holyghost

I doubt such a system is available off the shelf

[prithm]

Just checking, has anyone here vacated and refilled their inverter batteries with electrolyte as regular maintenance ?

My neighbors have pretty entry level batteries and their battery wala changes acid every year after dumping the old (he collects it and takes away), washes the innards and refills with his concoction.

Seems the battery has been running without any issue for last 5+ years.

[mvadg]

Originally Posted by Sebring

I recall Sanyo displaying their solar AC...

I think that was solar absorbtion technology. They seem to have vanished from the public eye. There was an Austrian company called SolarFrost that made great strides in solar cooling. [All these systems completely avoid electricity, compressors and the like. Use heat to create the cooling] Facinating stuff, I remember one Electrolux fridge that ran on kerosene.

[Thad E Ginathom]

Originally Posted by prithm

Seems the battery has been running without any issue for last 5+ years.

I sing too mine once a week, and it has been running well for nearly five years so far.

Just kidding () of course. Making the point that five years would be a normal expectation anyway, so we can't say anything in particular made it last that long. The real truth is that I actually neglect mine, letting the level indicators go right down (although the water is still above the plates) before refilling less than twice a year.

I'd like to see the guy do that job, and assess his safety. Or, perhaps I wouldn't.

I wonder if he checks the specific gravity ever? This used to be a regular thing, decades ago, with car batteries, before they came maintenance-free.

[prithm]

Originally Posted by Thad E Ginathom

I sing too mine once a week, and it has been running well for nearly five years so far.

... what all we do to please a inanimate object to perform in hour of need.

Originally Posted by Thad E Ginathom

I'd like to see the guy do that job, and assess his safety. Or, perhaps I wouldn't.

I wonder if he checks the specific gravity ever? This used to be a regular thing, decades ago, with car batteries, before they came maintenance-free.

No sophisticated work here Thad-san. Just plain old disconnect from mains, unplug the leads, open the cell refill plugs, dump the electrolyte in a industrial plastic drum, flush the cells with distilled water and probably MgSo4 or epsom salt which is a premix solution, refill with fresh electrolyte.

What baffles me is that few years back we used to face (post Vardah cyclone) power cuts from 4-8 hours. And this family used to run the batteries with irritating beeps all the while without any issue. And only recently I came to know about this wizardry.

Was feeling left out and wanted to check if anyone here are familiar with this practice.

[Thad E Ginathom]

Originally Posted by prithm

No sophisticated work here Thad-san. Just plain old disconnect from mains, unplug the leads, open the cell refill plugs, dump the electrolyte in a industrial plastic drum, flush the cells with distilled water and probably MgSo4 or epsom salt which is a premix solution, refill with fresh electrolyte.

That is rather what I feared. Remember that said electrolyte is actually dilute sulphuric acid. And beware of paying to much attention to word dilute there. You will get holes where it splashes on your clothes, burning sensation where it splashes on your skin, and you do not want to get it in your eyes.

Added to that, the disposal problem... Just pass that on to the environment by pouring it in a drain? At the very least it should be neutralised first.

Did we mention, last time that this was discussed, that mixing sulphuric acid and water (always pour acid into the water, never water into acid) is exothermic. Small things please small minds, and this production of quite a lot of heat from two cold liquids never failed to entertain me

[mvadg]

Originally Posted by Thad E Ginathom

That is rather what I feared. Remember that said electrolyte is actually dilute sulphuric acid.

I'd be more worried about the lead dissolved in the acid. Dilute sulphuric acid would react with the soil and become sulphate, not too bad, but lead would remain highly toxic in whatever form.

[Thad E Ginathom]

Originally Posted by mvadg

I'd be more worried about the lead dissolved in the acid.

Good point! So... Apart from immediate risk to skin and eyes, there would be short term environmental problems from the acid, but long, possibly permanent, danger from the lead.

Worse than I thought!

[LonelyPlanet]

My inverter battery slowly giving way after 6 yrs of service.
Its a 150aH Luminous brand and I must admit that I was lax for the first 2 yrs to regulartly top up.

I need to replace it and am confused with
Exide Invatubular (60 months) Rs 14200
Luminous 18075 (75 months) Rs 13100

Both prices on batterybhai

Please recommend between the two and also if there are better sources to buy other than batterybhai.

[R2D2]

Originally Posted by LonelyPlanet

My inverter battery slowly giving way after 6 yrs of service. Its a 150aH Luminous brand and I must admit that I was lax for the first 2 yrs to regulartly top up. I need to replace it and am confused with
Exide Invatubular (60 months) Rs 14200 Luminous 18075 (75 months) Rs 13100 Both prices on batterybhai

Please recommend between the two and also if there are better sources to buy other than batterybhai.

Between these two I'd go in for the Exide. This is from personal experience. My Exide inverter batteries are now 7 years and 3 months old and going pretty strong considering their age.

There are other online etailers too including Amazon but try contacting your local dealer for a quote and basically play vendors against each other.

[saket77]

Originally Posted by saket77

My inverter battery is a 4 year old 150aH Exide invamore (a flop Exide model). Noticed from probably last 7-8 months that the inverter’s charging light keeps blinking always; meaning that the battery probably is always in charging mode. I spoke about this with the Exide dealer and he says that the inverter itself is fine and it’s the battery which has gone weak and this is why the charging is always on. I topped up the electrolyte last week and things were still fine. What happened next is the back up failed within seconds after a power cut. I checked and found that electrolyte level in all but one cell was very low! I topped the level again and charged the battery through the same inverter. The battery seems to be holding up little better and the electrolyte level also seems to be ok since last 3 days. Experts, What could be the problem?

So, finally changed the inverter battery and rectified the mistake that I made last time of going for short tubular battery. This time went for Exide’s tall tubular battery and got a refund of 3K towards return of old battery. Net to net I paid Rs. 10.5K for Exide IMTT1500aH. All looks good now.

Thanks.

[BigBrad]

Originally Posted by R2D2

What the C10 and C20 means is the discharge rate i.e. 'X' Amps in 10 hours or 20 hour rate. So technically a C10 is better than a C20 because it can handle a faster discharge rate.

Originally Posted by Holyghost

However, the C rating specifies the safe discharge/charge rate for the battery.
So a C20 battery is safe to be discharged in 20 hours, and if you try to discharge it in 10 hours, the battery life will be affected. Try doing it 1 hour, your battery is permanently damaged.

The same goes for the charge rate. A 200Ah battery rated for C10 charging can be safely charged at 20Amps. C5 rated battery can be charged at 40A and you can get your battery charged in 5 hours. This doesn't mean that the battery cant be charged at a higher rate, but you do that at the risk of damaging the battery or its life.

Hello guys,
Thanks for the detailed explanation reg inverter batteries. Since past few days, I'm trying to figure out which battery is best suited for my home inverter as the present battery has reached its end of life.

So we currently have an 875VA inverter (approx 80% efficiency) and it's connected to a 150ah C20 battery. The inverter has two charging modes: Normal charging at 10A and High charging at 12A. In our area, we mostly have long power cuts and short power cuts happen rarely. When these long cuts happen, we hardly notice the alarm sound in the inverter and the battery used to get deep discharged. I'm assuming this is the reason why the battery didn't last 4 years.

I have the following queries:

1. For my current inverter with 10A and 12A charging modes, what's the max recommended battery if I want to run approx 500W load for 3hrs?
2. Considering the above scenario, what are the pros n cons of a similar capacity C10 or C20 battery? If cost and availability isn't a concern which one will serve the purpose better and stay more reliable in long term?

As per availability goes, I can get C10 in either 150ah or 200ah sizes and C20 in 150, 180 or 200ah sizes. Surprisingly, prices seem to be not that different between similar capacity C10 and C20 batteries, which is causing even more confusion.

[Holyghost]

Originally Posted by BigBrad

I have the following queries:

1. For my current inverter with 10A and 12A charging modes, what's the max recommended battery if I want to run approx 500W load for 3hrs?
2. Considering the above scenario, what are the pros n cons of a similar capacity C10 or C20 battery? If cost and availability isn't a concern which one will serve the purpose better and stay more reliable in long term?

As per availability goes, I can get C10 in either 150ah or 200ah sizes and C20 in 150, 180 or 200ah sizes. Surprisingly, prices seem to be not that different between similar capacity C10 and C20 batteries, which is causing even more confusion.

C rating is critical for solar applications where batteries get charged and discharged on a daily basis. However for inverters which see occasional usage, the C rating is not that critical and is mainly for calculating charging rate. Since your charging current is 10A, for a 150AH battery, the charging rate is C15, and at 12A C rating is even lower. So you should definitely go for C10 rated batteries for longer life.
For 200AH battery, 10A charge rate equates to C20 and 12A charge rate equates to C17. You should be okay with C20 rated batteries for 200AH if cost difference is significant. Otherwise stick to C10 since C10 batteries tends to be better built than an equivalent C20 batteries.

[saur95]

It's incredible that Team-BHP has a thread this long and detailed on home inverters.

I'm based in Bombay and faced a couple of power cuts the past month, not longer than 2 hours but still enough to disrupt the study/work from home routine. The housing society refuses to accept that we need generator backup, which is downright irresponsible (not to mention miserly!) considering it's a 13 storey building with 50% of its occupants over the age of 60. Should be illegal but I digress.

Anyway, I was considering an inverter setup and was hoping to receive some advice/thoughts on the same. Our requirements would primarily include :

1. Fans : 5
2. LED Tubelights : 6
3. LED Bulbs : 2
4. WiFi Modem & Router
5. Laptops : 3

It's unlikely all of these will be used/charged at the same time but just a worst case scenario. Would want to be prepared for 4-6 hour long outages. The setup I plan to go with is :

• 1500 VA Sine Wave inverter (Considering the Luminous Zelio+)
• 2 x 150 Ah Batteries

Would I need higher capacity batteries? Any suggestions regarding the inverter brand and model?

My biggest concern is that our MCB board is located in a narrow aisle which connects all the rooms in our apartment, where ventilation isn't too great (No sunlight at all though). Would it be a good idea to get a set of Gel VRLA batteries instead of the flooded types in this case? Or should I locate the inverter a little further away, in a more appropriate space (This is probably not possible, especially as lessees)? I understand that I'll take a hit on the longevity front with the gel units and will need to invest in an inverter with temperature sensitive charging.

Saw that Exide has a Supergel 1500 (https://www.batterywale.com/batteryw...ashtra/Mumbai/). Luminous has an InverGel (https://www.luminousindia.com/igstj-18000.html). Haven't seen any reviews of either but both have a 3 year warranty.

Would be grateful if any of you could help out!

[Prowler]

Originally Posted by saur95

Our requirements would primarily include :

1. Fans : 5
2. LED Tubelights : 6
3. LED Bulbs : 2
4. WiFi Modem & Router
5. Laptops : 3

• 1500 VA Sine Wave inverter (Considering the Luminous Zelio+)
• 2 x 150 Ah Batteries

Your listed requirement is approximately about 600 VA and your batteries should be sufficient for at least 6 hours back up time. I will leave the rest of the queries to the resident Gurus R2D2 and HolyGhost.