Battery Score 3

I'm charging the cells individually instead of in a bank as a battery. It will take ten times a long, but be at least ten times safer. I can also better control the voltage on a single cell, and make sure that it remains within the manufacturers recommended guidelines. Charging a battery of multiple cells results in much greater swings in voltage and current as the cells begin to accept a charge.

Yesterday, I checked the AC voltage going into the chargers, and it's around 17 volts, so the chargers are loafing on this job, no heat to speak of. When I charged the original set of 20 UHP65's I used this technique, and didn't see any unusual behaviour. Yet another caution is that I put the new cells on to charge in the early morning, and watch them for the next 12 - 15 hours, adjusting the current as needed. By bedtime, I have a pretty good idea whether the charging is stabilised and if it's safe to leave it to go overnight unsupervised.

There's now three chargers and variacs, with the Mil-Spec batteries now on line and getting the treatment. Got to do something useful with all the excess solar electricity. Yesterday, my dump load (the electric water heater) came up to 150 degrees F, and the thermostat switched it off. That meant that any excess production was entering the utility grid and I was being charged for the privledge of sending power to my neighbor's homes. After finding this problem, I cobbled up a three-way thermostat so that when the tank is up to temp, the excess power is burned off in an electric space heater, but that's a waste in the middle of summer.