Battery Troubleshooting

Problem Cause Solution

Failure to provide rated ampere Discharged condition, excessive
hour sulfation, or loss of active material
from positive plates

Specific Gravity of Battery Cells Electrolyte in a battery has dried off Transfer electrolyte to balance
is not same charge.

Cell uses excessive water Caused by overcharging, high Remove the cause
operating temperatures, or leaking
cell

Cell uses very little water Caused by insufficient charging Ensure battery is charged fully

Antimony deposit dark-slate Caused by charging at too high a Connect / Replace charger
patches on negative plates rate or an aged cell nearing the end Caused due to wrong charger.
(usually near the terminal) of its service life. Replace the charger.

Corrosion of Battery Terminals Wash Battery Terminals with

hot water & brush until all the
corrosion is gone
 Battery Troubleshooting
Problem
Patches of white lead sulphate
on either plate
Cause Solution
Caused by standing idle or Remove patches with a cloth
undercharging for extended and charge the battery for 1-2
periods. days
Battery Problem

Problem
 Battery discharging very quickly

Check
 When batteries become old, their charge holding capacity reduces.
To test if your battery is good or dead, you can perform Load Test.

Troubleshoot
• Batteries must be fully charged-up for doing load test. If not, then first
• recharge the batteries to full voltage level.
• Disconnect batteries from being charged
• Take a battery and connect Voltmeter across it terminals.
• Connect a heavy 12 Volt DC load (like a 12 Volt Fan) directly to the battery
and observe change in the voltage across it. Battery should maintain
voltage of 10.5 Volts or higher while on load. If it falls below that voltage,
there is problem with the battery, and it needs to be replaced.
System Diagnostics
Battery Load Test
Outcome
With this test you will be able to test if your
battery is good or dead

Load Test
• Batteries must be fully charged-up for doing
load test. If not, then first recharge the
batteries to full voltage level.
• Disconnect Solar Panels from Charge
Controller. Remove Solar Panels first, because
if you disconnect the batteries first, power
from Solar Panels can damage the batteries
• Switch OFF Load from Charge Controller
System Diagnostics

Load Test (contd..)

• Preferably load test Batteries individually. Seperate the batteries.
• Now take just one battery at a time and measure its Voltage with
Multimeter. Keep Multimeter connected to the battery
• Find some heavy DC load like a 12/24 Volt Fan for the test, or bunch of
DC lights.
• Connect load (DC fan) to that one battery for 5 seconds and observe
change in the voltage across it. The battery should maintain voltage of
10.5 Volts or higher while on load. If it falls below that voltage, there is
problem with the battery, and it needs to be replaced.
Terminal Corrosion

Corrosion causes many battery failures

Corrosion causes a barrier between the
battery post and the cable
When there is a barrier, no electrons can flow
Even though the battery is fully charged,
current will not flow
Eliminating Corrosion

 Remove the negative cable, then the positive cable

Wash the top of the battery with hot water until all the corrosion
is gone

Clean the positive post with a battery cleaning brush, then the
battery cable

The corrosion is gone when the post and cable are shiny
Eliminating Corrosion

Connect the positive cable to the battery

Clean the negative post and cable until clean

Reconnect the cable to the battery

Many anticorrosion products are available to prevent corrosion

Identify the Problem
What’s wrong with the battery placement in this
picture?

Opposite polarity of Battery kept aside

 Accelerates self discharge of the batteries
 Chances of short circuit in the batteries increases
Batteries of unequal age connected together causes differential
charging
Self Discharging in Batteries

+ -

Battery 1 Battery 2

- +
Short Circuit Risks in Batteries

+ -

Battery 1 Battery 2

Risk of Short-Circuit due

- + to close proximity of
opposite terminals
Self Discharge

Batteries always keep on

discharging very slowly, which can
only be detected by monitoring its
charge capacity after every few days

Discharge rate largely depends on

ambient temperature

Self discharge rate is higher if

batteries are directly kept on the
ground Ref.: Exide Gel-Batteries information
Self Discharge

Nominal storage time for Gel-Solar

Batteries is 4 months
 Solar batteries have smaller storage
time due to phosphoric acid added
to increase their no. of cycles/life

After 4 months check voltage of stored

batteries in every two months

Charge them off with tickle charging

current (whenever voltage drops below
Ref.: Exide Gel-Batteries information
11.8 V)
Storing batteries

 Appropriate inventory based on FIFO (“First in –

First Out”) should be maintained F I R S T
 This will result in better operating quality of
batteries as no battery will be stored for too long I N
Keep batteries in a sequence from left to right
Place red clip on battery to be commissioned
F I R S T
Place black clip on the last incoming battery
Always number two batteries coming from same O U T
site, so that they bath can be sent back together
Black Clip Red Clip
on on
B11 B12 B15 B16 B7 B8
+

+
outgoing
-

-
incoming
batteries batteries

B9 B10 B13 B14 B17 B18 B5 B6

+

+
-

-
-

-
Charge Equalization
Balancing voltage of batteries connected in series
Observe different terminal voltage of two batteries connected in CHARGE
series CONTROLLER
+ Batt. -
Vbatt1 = 12.3 V Vbatt2 = 11.6 V
Veq. = 23.9 Volts Vdiff. = 0.7 Volts
Now lets understand what happens when this charge controller
starts charging the battery 12.3
Ideally maximum charging voltage of a battery should be 14.2 V, and V

-
for two batteries connected in series is 28.4 V.
Here CC will disconnect at voltage Vbatt1 = 14.55 V, Vbatt2 = 13.85 V

Here we can see Battery 1 is overcharged (which reduces its life), and
battery 2 is undercharged (its full capacity is not utilized) 11.6
V

-
To overcome this problem we use charge equalizers to balance
voltage of batteries connected in series.
Charge Equalization

It is very important to equalize

• Two batteries in Series before their
commissioning
• Old batteries coming to service center for any
repair
Battery Battery
This battery equalizer balances the voltage 1 2

+
-

-
imbalance in between batteries at a stable
charging/discharging rate.
Charge Equalization

Battery Equalizer for new batteries before their

commissioning
• Connect Two 12V batteries in series

• Connect black, red and yellow cables of charge

equalizer to the batteries as shown in the right Black Yellow
hand side Red
0V 12 V 24 V

Battery Battery
• Allow batteries to equalize for around 15-20 1 2

+
minutes, now batteries are equalized and ready

-
for commissioning
Charge Equalization

Battery Equalizer for old batteries at battery

station coming for repair

• Connect batteries in series with each other, and

to the charge controller the way done before
Black Yellow
Red
0V 12 V 24 V

• Connect batteries to Solar Panel, and leave the Battery Battery

system for charging. 1 2

+
-

-
• When equalizer is working, the equalizer light
blinks at a very fast pace. And when charge
equalization is completed blink rate of Charge
controller slows down.
Deep Discharging

Remember what happens when you don’t drive

your car for months.

Your car battery gets discharged, and you have

to:
Push the car to start it back
Charge your car’s battery with another
battery using jumper wires – In this method a
charged battery of much higher capacity
charges Deep Discharged battery till their
charge capacity equalizes

Note: Deep discharging of Batteries severely

damage them
Deep Discharging
Reviving Deep Discharged Batteries
We have a battery less not old and is expected
Deep Discharged Battery
to be capable of storing charge but was 6 Volts
unfortunately left in a discharged state for too ( 12 Volts Battery )
long.

• On testing terminal voltage of the battery with

a Multimeter, we get a reading of 6.0 Volts.
• Since it is a 12 Volts Battery so it should have
a reading within the 12 volt range.
• We term these batteries as Deep Discharged
Batteries, damaged due to improper usage.
Reviving Batteries
Recharging with a Charge Controller

Will this work?

Answer will be NO.

CHARGE S +l r Because voltage has dropped
o -a
CONTROLLER
Battery so low, a normal battery
+ -
Charge Controller will not
recognize below 18 Volts .
And here we are having 6 V +
11.2 V = 17.2 volts, so here
Deep Discharged Battery Normal Battery
the charge controller will not
Initially at 6 volts initially at 11.2 volts detect the battery's and will
not charge it.
Reviving Batteries

Recharging with a Charge Controller,

When 1 battery is fully charged

Will this work? The answer will be NO

Here Battery 2 is completely
S +l r
CHARGE
CONTROLLER o -a
charged, but to charge battery
Battery
+ - 1,
We go on charging battery 2,
thereby overcharging it, which
results in damaging battery 2.
Deep Discharged Battery Normal Battery Here we have 6 V + 12.2 V =
18.2 volts, so here the
Initially at 6 volts initially at 12.2 Volts
charge controller will detect
the batteries and start
charging.
Reviving Batteries

Charging directly with a PV module

Answer will be YES. But is NOT

advisable.
Panel output voltage is around 71
volts, which gives each battery
around 35 volts.
Normally a battery terminal voltage
shouldn't be more then 17-18 Volts
for long duration for charging.
Here we are charging the battery at
35 Volts, which can melt the plates Deep Discharged Battery Normal Battery
of the battery. Initially at 6 volts initially at 12.5 volts
Overvoltage can also lead to blasting
of batteries.
Reviving Batteries

Correct Method
Connect Deep Discharged battery in series with
a fully charged battery
Ah capacity of Charged Battery should higher
then that of Deep Discharged battery
 Voltage of Charged battery might drop to
below its nominal range while charging of
Deep Discharged battery, thereby Good
battery can also be damaged while reviving a Deep Discharged
Battery (75 Ah)

charged battery Initially at 6 volts

You can also connect to 12 V Charge Controller

in Parallel as shown in figure Normal Battery
Now equalize the battery with another battery 180 Ah
initially at 12.5 volts
to be commissioned on field
Reviving Batteries

Correct Method
• Negative terminals of all
batteries are connected to
each other
• Similarly Positive terminals of
all batteries are connected to
each other Normal Battery
180 Ah
• Note: Charge Capacity of Live initially at 12.5 volts
batteries should be higher
then that of Deep Discharged
batteries Deep Discharged
Battery (75 Ah)
Initially at 6 volts
Battery Problem

What can be wrong with this type of

wire-connections with the battery
terminals ?

• No use of wire lugs or crocodile clips.

Loose connections cause micro-sparks,
which cause heating of battery
terminals and their melting.
Battery Problem

Micro-sparks and heating at terminals, cause deforming of the terminals