Load tester and a battery hydrometer to check best. also, connections can look good but your should check the actual contact by disconnecting each one to visually check connections for carbon build up or corrosion.
Witness the exposed beating heart of the NarroWay Homestead. Amazing how you've managed to get this all working, and great how you're sharing the crisis with your watchers, and especially with Jen.
On DC systems (like automotive) you should always disconnect the negative first and reconnect negative last. The reason is if you disconnect the positive and leave the negative connected. If something shorts the positive post of the battery to a ground it will be a dead short. Very bad. If you disconnect the negative and leave the positive connected. If something shorts the positive post of the battery to a ground, nothing will happen. As others have mentioned, the huge spark is caused by the CAPS in the inverter charging. You can use a very big resister inline to temporally charge the CAPS without the huge surge. Then very quickly remove the resister and connect the negative before the CAPS discharge again. It will soften the blow on the components.
Golf cart batteries in that application were a temporary system from the start. Flooded lead acid with that kind of plate structure aren't great for off grid solar storage. Honestly, LFP is a better chemistry for that use profile (safety, density, maintenance, etc), but your FLA batteries can be used until the plates are toast. You did a good job of triaging your existing system for sure though. Nice work.
He really would thrive with about 1600ah of forklift batteries. If he bought brand new it could be the last set he had to buy in his life. I know guys running 12v systems running on forklift cells since the 90s and they’re still going strong
the best way to test these batteries is put a big load on them and then under load check each one for voltage. in a golf cart i park the cart against an non moveable object like a block wall then hit the gas full and test each battery . then you find the bad ones right away
Hey Nate good to see you! My TH-cam friend and I have been experimenting with reconditioning batteries to get a longer life outta them he's using the same batteries you are and I am using renogy 200ah batteries ran in series for a 48v system gbear is a 12v system! Anyway we took a 100w solar panel and hooked it directly to the battery and let it charge for 24-48 hrs! Then let it set for 24 hrs to see if it will hold a charge! I have successfully reconditioned 4 batteries that way! God bless Nate!
Nate just keep it dry erase board and a dry erase marker with your battery's numbered and a little grid on your dry erase board of your batteries numbered and then just note voltage levels on your dry erase board next to the number of the battery. There you go and Bob's your uncle!
I work for the signal dept at a railway. We still have old equipment in un-heated bungalows (silver metal huts) that have lead acid that have been running for years.
Thanks Nate for showing not only what you are doing but explaining your thought process in making the decisions you've made. I'm not yet in a position to start implementing solar in my home but will eventually and seeing someone go through it will be a benefit to me when I get started going down that path.
It'll be so good when you can transition to inside your new building, really looking forward to you share that, am really wanting to get a grasp of it Cold n dark- makes it harder fs-
What are you talking about, sealed lead acid have way less depth of discharge and total cycles than flooded. Nate just got the cheapest flooded batteries with predictable results. Next time buy good ones.
Ur still pretty dexterious man. Great spacial awareness 😉 I don't crawl around as confidently anymore,but luckily I'm one helluva tool passer!....and I'll roll ya up a wicked "thinkin stik" too.
you can use one of those big power resistors (30 to 100 Ohms, 100W) and connect the last wire first for a couple of seconds through the resistor and then immediately to the terminal. that big spark is the capacitors in the inverter charging like a dead short. beside the big spark, it is also not very nice for the equipment. keep going...
Hey Nate: it really sucks that you're having *SOLAR POWER* problems and that you have to go down to just a few batteries. Hopefully now, with the new *GARAGE* built, getting your *ENERGY CAPACITY* up and going/put into its proper places will become *Priority #1* for you. I can only hope that nothing else will start to fail anytime in the near future. So, all I can say is *GOOD LUCK* to you and let us know how it went!!! ~ JonseyG 👲💖
Hey Nate from a hyper vigilant orginal back to mother earth movement "60's", retired farmer/Kubota Tractor Dealer/ Bobcat equipment Dealer/ please get rid of negative aspect of the word failure to failure is just another opportunity to succeed . Bought my first farm in Crossville Tennessee.. PLANNING ORGANIZATION AND CONTROL 😊
Negative first off and last on is for vehicles with negative ground, because you can't weld your wrench to the frame working on the negative terminal energizing or de-energizing the system.
i work for a telco and we test the conductance of our battery strings annually in our central offices, which are -48v dc power plants. We use the midtronics testers which work pretty well, they are not cheap but id imagine there are budget conductance testers out there that will work fine. But thats the best way to determine the health of the battery from my understanding, might be worth investing in one so you can test them quarterly or however often you want.
You said you don't usually carry a knife. May I recommend a multi-tool. Needle nose pliers, Phillips and slotted screwdriver, knife, punch, bottle opener, cutters...all in one tool in a little pouch smaller than your phone on your side. You will use it everyday.
Also don't forget when lithium reaches the maximum charge it needs to be disconnected from the power which is another relay system if you fail to do so you risk burning down the entire system
Gonna get worse with the way things are going with the import and export in the years to come better make sure you got batteries to last they are gonna get super expensive.....
Go AGM and 24V batteries. Higher voltage and amp hour capacity means fewer cycles and AGM lets you go to 80% discharge. Much longer life and deeper power reserve.
During the last few years the prices of Lithium ion (especially Lithium Iron Phosphate) batteries dropped by many $/kWh so redoing the research might be worth it
lead acid, is lead acid.. they are good for long term, but not perfect.. you could build your own batteries. the sulfate from the lead can be made to fall off at the bottom with very high voltage. the issue is that it remains in the battery.. so in theory, if you make a battery which would have a compartment to store that excess sulfate and a way to remove it, and that you regularly maintain them by changing the electrolytes and a surge of high voltage.. your batteries could last extremely long time.... in theory... I never tried. you can't buy this cause no companies would want to make an eternal battery. but I reckon if you build a small electronic circuit that injects high voltage on regular intervals so the process is automated.. you could also add ph sensors inside the electrolyte to tell you when is time to replace the fluid... IDK.. someone here maybe has the will and the time to test that out. I know some guys in the military have AWESOME tricks to extend the life of lead-acid batteries almost indefinetly. prolly one of them guys could give us insights
I did not see any grease on the battery terminals. Some grease will reduce corrosion and may extend the life of the batteries. It is something I do whenever I change a car battery and if you already do this never mind.
Nate hope your doing good bro blessings to you and your family, also love what your doing for Willy I can see growth in the young Bear or maybe a bobcat he's not big enough to be a Bear lol. Great Video Bro.
really should use lithium yes they dont charge well when cold... but you can heat them up with the sun, and if you make a sand heat bank you wont have any issues.
ahhh you are suffering from bat balance issue killing ur batts. this happens when u have multiple bats in parallel a common issue I have encountered many times.. The solution to prevent this is have a common positive and neg terminal try keep the lengths of wire joining them the same.... path of least resistance the sparky way 😇
My question is are they refillable can you clean the lead inside and refill the acid If you can do that you can save the batteries I've done that with three of my backup deep cycle
Polarity doesn't matter when measuring DC batteries, it shows the same value both ways, just one of them is negative. Also the only way this battery can kill you is by falling on you from the roof, it might burn you when you short them, but nothing seriously dangerous. Who suggested rubber gloves for work on low voltage high current electronics? Seriously? Do you want them to melt on your hands?
it honestly sounds like you could expand the life of them by drawing from one at a time instead of all in a parallel, but I dont do solar I just run useless motor systems.
Very informative bro, i learned alot. Question though, isnt anything over 6v ok, or are you checking for the batteries that are just lower voltage than the others? Thanks
Why do you put text right in the middle of your videos? TH-cam has an awesome CC feature for those that need it. The text is distracting and too close to the center of your video. I read way faster than you speak and it makes trying to watch your videos insanely annoying. Please consider removing embedded text and let folks that need CC use youtubes.
Texts are fun. Thank you. TH-cam with paid for no ads,$21 a month, is grand, too. It’s a good idea to do your own homework, creator you, as you create your own reality, without blaming. WHATYAGONNADO. 🐝Kind.
Load tester and a battery hydrometer to check best.
also, connections can look good but your should check the actual contact by disconnecting each one to visually check connections for carbon build up or corrosion.
AWESOME NATE so glad jen joined u
It is so cool to me that I can come to this channel genuinely for content and still learn things I can use in my career, thanks Nate
Witness the exposed beating heart of the NarroWay Homestead. Amazing how you've managed to get this all working, and great how you're sharing the crisis with your watchers, and especially with Jen.
On DC systems (like automotive) you should always disconnect the negative first and reconnect negative last. The reason is if you disconnect the positive and leave the negative connected. If something shorts the positive post of the battery to a ground it will be a dead short. Very bad. If you disconnect the negative and leave the positive connected. If something shorts the positive post of the battery to a ground, nothing will happen. As others have mentioned, the huge spark is caused by the CAPS in the inverter charging. You can use a very big resister inline to temporally charge the CAPS without the huge surge. Then very quickly remove the resister and connect the negative before the CAPS discharge again. It will soften the blow on the components.
Unless you don't have a negatively ground chassis like Nate doesn't in this situation. Here, it doesn't matter.
Sorry nate I have to report you.
Unless you can get a minion inspection it will never be up to code.
Golf cart batteries in that application were a temporary system from the start. Flooded lead acid with that kind of plate structure aren't great for off grid solar storage. Honestly, LFP is a better chemistry for that use profile (safety, density, maintenance, etc), but your FLA batteries can be used until the plates are toast. You did a good job of triaging your existing system for sure though. Nice work.
those are litterally used for rv house batteries too not just golf carts sincerely a battery store owner
He really would thrive with about 1600ah of forklift batteries. If he bought brand new it could be the last set he had to buy in his life. I know guys running 12v systems running on forklift cells since the 90s and they’re still going strong
the best way to test these batteries is put a big load on them and then under load check each one for voltage. in a golf cart i park the cart against an non moveable object like a block wall then hit the gas full and test each battery . then you find the bad ones right away
Hey Nate good to see you! My TH-cam friend and I have been experimenting with reconditioning batteries to get a longer life outta them he's using the same batteries you are and I am using renogy 200ah batteries ran in series for a 48v system gbear is a 12v system! Anyway we took a 100w solar panel and hooked it directly to the battery and let it charge for 24-48 hrs! Then let it set for 24 hrs to see if it will hold a charge! I have successfully reconditioned 4 batteries that way! God bless Nate!
Nate just keep it dry erase board and a dry erase marker with your battery's numbered and a little grid on your dry erase board of your batteries numbered and then just note voltage levels on your dry erase board next to the number of the battery. There you go and Bob's your uncle!
Ok, long time follower on the clock app and this is my first red play button video. As someone who is hearing impaired accurate subtitles are awesome.
Pretty sure saying TH-cam or whatever other app names is completely fine in comments.
@talmboutcris yeah saying TikTok or TH-cam or any other service here is fine as far as I can tell, it's just TikTok that doesn't like it
@talmboutcris yeah it is more just was supposed to be funny cause that's what he refers to them on tic tok which is how I've watched him for a while.
I work for the signal dept at a railway. We still have old equipment in un-heated bungalows (silver metal huts) that have lead acid that have been running for years.
I wish I knew 1/10 of what you know, Nate. You amaze me.
I love Minion! ❤❤❤❤❤
Hey Nate. Usually gonna be at least a little sparks somewhere. Even between you and Jenn.
Thanks Nate for showing not only what you are doing but explaining your thought process in making the decisions you've made. I'm not yet in a position to start implementing solar in my home but will eventually and seeing someone go through it will be a benefit to me when I get started going down that path.
Always take the negative off first especially with them all being linked like this please be safe friend
It'll be so good when you can transition to inside your new building, really looking forward to you share that, am really wanting to get a grasp of it
Cold n dark- makes it harder fs-
Jen has really put the home in the homestead. And she is a kick ass on the camera.
OPTIMA BATTERIES MAN 👍
Yeah, they ain't cheap. But you won't be thinking about that 10yrs later.
... been there, doing that, for decades
What are you talking about, sealed lead acid have way less depth of discharge and total cycles than flooded. Nate just got the cheapest flooded batteries with predictable results. Next time buy good ones.
Testing GC2 batteries requires a discharge from full. You’re just measuring the resting voltage.
And it'll give me a good idea in a hurry about bad cells.
Ur still pretty dexterious man. Great spacial awareness 😉
I don't crawl around as confidently anymore,but luckily I'm one helluva tool passer!....and I'll roll ya up a wicked "thinkin stik" too.
you can use one of those big power resistors (30 to 100 Ohms, 100W) and connect the last wire first for a couple of seconds through the resistor and then immediately to the terminal. that big spark is the capacitors in the inverter charging like a dead short. beside the big spark, it is also not very nice for the equipment. keep going...
6 volt battery= 3 x 2.1 volt cells. Stressing battery with incandescent lights... Takes the fuzz voltage off... Is a must before testing...
pre charge resistor. Yikes Nate..Gonna pop capacitors in the inverters with that in rush current surge!
Hey Nate: it really sucks that you're having *SOLAR POWER* problems and that you have to go down to just a few batteries. Hopefully now, with the new *GARAGE* built, getting your *ENERGY CAPACITY* up and going/put into its proper places will become *Priority #1* for you. I can only hope that nothing else will start to fail anytime in the near future. So, all I can say is *GOOD LUCK* to you and let us know how it went!!! ~ JonseyG 👲💖
The cool thing is that necessity is the mother of invention. You'll figure it out, Nate!! You'll do well.
Garage siding looks awesome Nate
That's a bummer.
Hey Nate from a hyper vigilant orginal back to mother earth movement "60's", retired farmer/Kubota Tractor Dealer/ Bobcat equipment Dealer/ please get rid of negative aspect of the word failure to failure is just another opportunity to succeed . Bought my first farm in Crossville Tennessee..
PLANNING
ORGANIZATION AND
CONTROL
😊
Keep doing what you do . I find it very interesting ❤
They need to be stressed. They might test good and it's a surface charge.
Well it was more interesting than the garage.
Negative first off and last on is for vehicles with negative ground, because you can't weld your wrench to the frame working on the negative terminal energizing or de-energizing the system.
i work for a telco and we test the conductance of our battery strings annually in our central offices, which are -48v dc power plants. We use the midtronics testers which work pretty well, they are not cheap but id imagine there are budget conductance testers out there that will work fine. But thats the best way to determine the health of the battery from my understanding, might be worth investing in one so you can test them quarterly or however often you want.
12:50 "i bet i have an idea ill educate you on that later!" 🤣😉
😂
You said you don't usually carry a knife. May I recommend a multi-tool. Needle nose pliers, Phillips and slotted screwdriver, knife, punch, bottle opener, cutters...all in one tool in a little pouch smaller than your phone on your side. You will use it everyday.
RIUXU has a shipping free 16kw 320lb battery for $3200. Order now before the tariffs.
You can put capacitor batterys at the the end of a stack of batterys 🔋 to keep the voltage ⚡ up. They dont last long. They are for backup purposes.
Awesome video. Definitely need a battery load tester and a hydrometer.
Always drain all power before lifting batteries. Makes m way lighter 😅
You should get you a battery load tester that they use at auto parts stores. Takes the guesswork out of diagnosing.
From working at a golf course I found it is better to replace all the batteries on the cart once they start to go
Also don't forget when lithium reaches the maximum charge it needs to be disconnected from the power which is another relay system if you fail to do so you risk burning down the entire system
Nate, love the head lamp hate. An idea would be making one camo for all us hunters lol but keep up the good work
Gonna get worse with the way things are going with the import and export in the years to come better make sure you got batteries to last they are gonna get super expensive.....
Go AGM and 24V batteries. Higher voltage and amp hour capacity means fewer cycles and AGM lets you go to 80% discharge. Much longer life and deeper power reserve.
I like the solar videos
It would be cool if you use Jessy as a camera man sometimes so we can see both of you doing things together
Will you end up putting the solar on the garage Roof ?
But how long did you wait. Batteries should sit for 12-24 hrs to take a real test.
During the last few years the prices of Lithium ion (especially Lithium Iron Phosphate) batteries dropped by many $/kWh so redoing the research might be worth it
So, how soon after this video airs do you think someone will reach out and offer to supply you with modern batteries?
I usually revive lead acid batteries with the MMA welder 😁 works well 💯
I see Nate sabotaging this so he can "educate" Jen later lol. Tell Will to get his headphones ready these hollers gonna be hollering 😂😂. 🎉
For all of 13 seconds 😂😂
lead acid, is lead acid.. they are good for long term, but not perfect.. you could build your own batteries. the sulfate from the lead can be made to fall off at the bottom with very high voltage. the issue is that it remains in the battery.. so in theory, if you make a battery which would have a compartment to store that excess sulfate and a way to remove it, and that you regularly maintain them by changing the electrolytes and a surge of high voltage.. your batteries could last extremely long time.... in theory... I never tried. you can't buy this cause no companies would want to make an eternal battery. but I reckon if you build a small electronic circuit that injects high voltage on regular intervals so the process is automated.. you could also add ph sensors inside the electrolyte to tell you when is time to replace the fluid... IDK.. someone here maybe has the will and the time to test that out. I know some guys in the military have AWESOME tricks to extend the life of lead-acid batteries almost indefinetly. prolly one of them guys could give us insights
YASSSSSSS BEEN WAITING FOR THIS VIDEO 😮😊
(13:49) Is that Will hollering in the background somewhere? 😉
No, the guys working on the garage
@@Narrowayhomestead 👍😎☮️
HI MINION
I did not see any grease on the battery terminals. Some grease will reduce corrosion and may extend the life of the batteries. It is something I do whenever I change a car battery and if you already do this never mind.
I'm pretty danged sure lead acid batteries don't like cold weather either, so good luck.
Their overall capacity is diminished, but they will still take a charge
Nate hope your doing good bro blessings to you and your family, also love what your doing for Willy I can see growth in the young Bear or maybe a bobcat he's not big enough to be a Bear lol. Great Video Bro.
really should use lithium yes they dont charge well when cold... but you can heat them up with the sun, and if you make a sand heat bank you wont have any issues.
Red is always 1st to the party and the last to leave, is what ive always been told
So 6 and up are all good. You need to put a draw on them. To find the true bad ones.
12:59 you guys ❤
ahhh you are suffering from bat balance issue killing ur batts. this happens when u have multiple bats in parallel a common issue I have encountered many times.. The solution to prevent this is have a common positive and neg terminal try keep the lengths of wire joining them the same.... path of least resistance the sparky way 😇
Wish You would wear Safety glasses..... Also go with Lithium Iron batteries
He has enough money to buy a proper battery stack. Playing with these is just a waste of time and money.
I do recommend you research what it takes to make your own batteries before you pick which brand you by
I blame the batteries get some lithium ion batteries with the heater in them and you can charge them anytime
You can have volts but not amps.you need a load tester.
So what it cost to build vs what you saved over 4 years , was it really a savings ?
saved compared to what? Not having power at all?
@ vs power company ?
For all the things nate has running in the summer it is definitely still cheaper
Resting should be 6. 3 to 6.4
Higher resting is probably bad batt
They were recently charged, that's why the voltage was so high. I definitely didn't do a scientific test here. Lol
Wait at 8:28 did he say this guy beats my wi--ner?!😂😂 im sure I just mis heard that!😂
You need lithium batteries they work great for solar
I’m going to assume that you are insulating the garage. So maybe having all this stuff in the garage will help.
Invest in a small M12 impact driver for jobs like that the time you save will pay for it.
I have one... Why I didn't use it is beyond me 🤣🤣🤣
Do you have links or information on the solar equipment that you use?
My question is are they refillable can you clean the lead inside and refill the acid If you can do that you can save the batteries I've done that with three of my backup deep cycle
Take 12volt batteries and put 4 in series ×4 banks.
Polarity doesn't matter when measuring DC batteries, it shows the same value both ways, just one of them is negative. Also the only way this battery can kill you is by falling on you from the roof, it might burn you when you short them, but nothing seriously dangerous. Who suggested rubber gloves for work on low voltage high current electronics? Seriously? Do you want them to melt on your hands?
what`s up with the empty bottle of daiquiri mix in there lol
Big stand up type fork lift battery’s work better ?
They are heavy but you have lift help now
Where is the water level in those low batteries?
it honestly sounds like you could expand the life of them by drawing from one at a time instead of all in a parallel, but I dont do solar I just run useless motor systems.
Are those batteries sitting on bare concrete?
Oof good planning ahead though.
Very informative bro, i learned alot. Question though, isnt anything over 6v ok, or are you checking for the batteries that are just lower voltage than the others? Thanks
Because they were recently charged I was just looking for batteries that were lower voltage than the others
@Narrowayhomestead got it. I thought it would be just the sub 6v ones. Thanks for the info
What is this i'm hearing. The power has been out so there will be a new family adition in 9 months?
Would getting marine batteries help or is that just a dumb idea?
waiting for the day that your entire battery system can be replaced with a single AA battery.
love your content but for the love of god please do not overlay captions on the videos cant stand it ill be back when thats fixed !
🙌🙄🙏🙌
Why be so cheap?
You should be able to get a Generac system and a propane tank and use the solar for backup power.
Why do you put text right in the middle of your videos? TH-cam has an awesome CC feature for those that need it. The text is distracting and too close to the center of your video. I read way faster than you speak and it makes trying to watch your videos insanely annoying. Please consider removing embedded text and let folks that need CC use youtubes.
@@EricXVII It doesn’t bother me at all. 🤷🏼♀️ Different strokes…
@@amybennett828 It is annoying as hell
Texts are fun. Thank you. TH-cam with paid for no ads,$21 a month, is grand, too. It’s a good idea to do your own homework, creator you, as you create your own reality, without blaming.
WHATYAGONNADO. 🐝Kind.
Doesn't bother me at all. I think it's just you homie.
. TH-cam cc sucks . For the people who are not hearing abled this is very much appreciated .
Rolling I will educate you about that later. NEVER HEARD SEEN THAT SIDE OF NATE..HOPE THAT WENT WELL JEN 🫢🤣✌️✌️✌️✌️✌️✌️✌️
I don't know what to do without power.
😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆
What's a camera lady making per hour these days🫢🤣✌️✌️✌️JOKE
I'm really sorry this happened to you but at least you were somewhat prepared for it!!!
~ Viscen 🥷🌹😢😮