Max's batteries... and a lazy rain day.

Max has two 100 AH 12 volt AGM deep cycle batteries. He also has two 100 watt solar panels to keep those batteries charged.

For comparison, our North American motorhome Sherman had four 225 AH 6 volt wet cell batteries, and three 80 watt solar panels.

That's quite a bit of difference. Our usage is quite high given that we are on our laptops a lot. 

Sherman had more than enough battery power for our needs. Max also has just enough battery power for our needs...providing the sun shines every day! But a few days without enough sun will eventually wear down his batteries.

With deep cycle batteries, you don't want to discharge them below 50% capacity. In a perfect world, you don't want them to discharge below 80%, but after all, they are made to use, and we know they will have to be replaced eventually. But the less you deeply discharge them, the longer they will last.

At this time of year here in Albania, the sun does not get very high in the sky. So we don't get much sunlight coming into the batteries even when the sun is shining. Throw in a couple of overcast days, and we're good for three to four days before we will need to plug into electricity to charge the batteries.

So yesterday, with overcast skies and rain in the forecast, we needed to find somewhere to plug in. I came across a listing along our route for a highway truck stop that had electric spots for motorhomes... free! Of course we knew it wouldn't be scenic, and it might be noisy... but it turned out to be better than expected.

There are five spots. Only one other spot was in use when we arrived.

GPS 41.51931, 19.688987

The view out our front window!

But, those trucks were parked and never moved the whole time. It was actually quieter than expected, and the row of trucks somewhat blocked the road noise. Hey, it's free... we can't complain.

Yesterday, reader Creigh Gordon asked how I keep track of our battery usage. 

A resting 12 volt battery reads 12.7 volts when full charged. When it drops to 12.1, it is 50% charged. Max has a high tech touch screen control panel so that we can monitor the state of charge of his batteries. The control panel also shows the net amount of amps going in or out of the batteries at any given time.

When plugged in and fully charged there is a float charge that goes in, keeping the batteries between 13.2 volts and 13.5 volts.

When this photo was taken, there was a net gain of .88 amps going into the batteries. 

When first charging, there is a bulk charge that goes into the batteries. Being plugged in, I have seen that number as high as 20 amps. In bright sun, the maximum on solar is about 10 amps, but at this time of year with the sun so low in the sky the most is about 6 amps. In the evening, using lights and the laptops, there is a net loss of about 3.0 amps and the display turns red.

Of course the batteries also charge when we're driving. But it takes three of four hours of driving to fully charge the batteries, and it's pretty rare that we ever do that much in a day.

I'm always very aware of the state of charge of the batteries. The lowest I've had them is 12.0, and that's only happened twice. Resting voltage would be about 12.1 at that time, so that's as low as I will let them go. The worst thing you can do is let them go totally dead (below 11.5 volts) because that really cuts into their lifespan.

AGM batteries aren't known for lasting a long time, but that's normally because they are discharged too much on a regular basis, and they don't take kindly to that. I'll actually be happy to get two years out of these ones. 

Sure enough, it ended up raining for about three hours yesterday, but it didn't really start to clear up until after 3:00pm, and of course it's getting dark by 4:00pm, so we just stayed put for the night.

But the skies have cleared this morning, and with fully charged batteries we are going back to the coast. We need to do some grocery shopping, and we're going to take the route south of Durres, which we never did when we were here in the spring.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Record low deal on the FitBit Luxe Fitness Tracker. 

And in Canada...

Nixplay Smart WiFi Digital Picture Frame