One of the key components of a home solar power system is the battery bank. All the power generated by the solar panel will go to the charge controller and end up in the battery.

The kind of battery used for a residential solar power system is the deep cycle type or marine boat batteries. The number of battery needed will depend on your energy requirement.

Since you are going to spend substantial amount of money on the battery bank, it makes sense to take good care of them. One way of doing so is to regularly check the fluid in the battery. In order to do this, you will need to learn how to use a battery hydrometer.

How do you use the hydrometer?

The battery hydrometer is a glass tube with a suction bulb that draws the electrolyte from the battery into the tube. When that happens, the float inside the tube begins to rise.

On the float, you will see some markings on it. You can see a long red strip, a narrow white strip and then a little wider green strip.

How do the markings work?

Well, if it floats off and it’s in the green marking, that means the battery is in pretty good shape. When more of the float sticks out of the electrolyte in the glass tube, meaning the stronger the battery is.

If it floats up until the white strip, that means the battery is only in a fair shape. If the electrolyte goes up into the red strip marking, the battery really needs to be reconditioned.

When that happens, the charge controller may not be able to charge the battery to its full potential with the energy from the solar panel. You may have to pull out the battery and send it for servicing and to get a full recharge.

What will happen if you were leave the battery there?

If you were to do so, the battery will reached a critical level of discharge and it may damage the battery permanently. As a good practice, a battery should not be discharged beyond the 50% mark before recharge.

Although a deep cycle battery can handle deep level discharge, doing it too often will reduce its efficiency.

If you are looking for a battery hydrometer for your home solar system

battery bank, check out the Imperial 5991 Battery Test Hydrometer. You can get it cheaply from Amazon.com.

Related web pages:

1) Michael Harvey Earth 4 Energy Review – Reviewing top selling DIY home solar power system guide on the web.

When designing your home solar power system, always begin by doing an energy audit and find out how much electricity your home is consuming.

Next, decide how many electrical appliances you want to connect to the solar power system. That figure will help you to decide how many deep cycle battery you will need for the battery bank.

The batteries can be arranged in different ways to get the voltage you’ll need for your power inverter. If you are using a 1000 watt at12 volt power inverter, you will need 2 units of 6 volts batteries connected in series to come up with the 12 volts.

The most dangerous part of this process is the liquid in the battery. The liquid is sulfuric acid that will seriously burn you. As a safety precocious, always have some baking soda nearby to neutralize the acid in case you spilled some on your body.

You can check the acid in the battery by using a hydrometer. A hydrometer is what you use to measure the actual specific gravity of the acid inside.

On the hydrometer, you can see several discs floating. For example, if you see 3 discs floating with one at the bottom, you’ll know the battery is about 75% charged.

Here’s another safety tip. The gasses that come off from the battery, hydrogen gas (H2), can be hazardous as well. It is highly flammable. Make sure you work with the batteries in an open space and no sparks or open flame nearby.

DIY Home Solar Power Guide

Are you planning to build your own home solar power system? If you are, check out Michael Harvey’s Earth 4 Energy guide.

Michael’s e-book comes with step by step instructions on how to make a DIY solar panel with minimal cost. Check out my review of Earth4Energy on this blog for more information.

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If you are planning to use solar energy to reduce your home power requirement, one of your largest investment would be on the battery bank.

The bank will be used to store the power generated by the solar panels. The number of battery needed will depend of your power requirement.

The type of battery most suitable for a residential solar power system is the deep cycle type. Since you will be investing a large amount of money on the battery, it makes sense to take good care of them.

The following is a list of 5 tips to keep your deep cycle batteries in tip top condition.

1) Depth of discharge.

If possible, do not discharge the battery to a very low level. For example, a 100 percent discharge is when the battery is totally dead.

If the battery is discharged to 50 percent everyday it will last twice as long as it would if it’s cycled to 80 percent discharge.

2) Recharge the battery quickly.

The life expectancy of the battery is also depends on how soon a discharged battery is recharged. The sooner it is recharged the better.

This may be a challenge during cloudy days with a solar power system. A solution is to recharge the battery bank using power from the grid.

3) Avoid undercharging.

Undercharging is a result of the battery being repeatedly discharged and not fully recharged between cycles.

If a battery is not recharged the sulfate material that attaches to the discharged portions of the plates begins to harden into crystals.

Over time this sulfate cannot be converted back into active plate material and the battery is ruined.

Sulfation is the number one cause of battery failure.

4) Avoid overcharging.

Overcharging mean charging the batteries even thought it reached its maximum charged capacity. The result in severe water loss and plate corrosion.

5) Use a bigger battery bank.

When you are setting up a battery bank, have more battery units than what you’ll need. With a bigger battery bank, it will reduce the amount of power discharged before recharging.

If the weather at you home has more cloudy days, you may not have sufficient charging time. A large battery bank will provide sufficient power for your requirement.

Deep Cycle Battery Maintenance Guide

When you have invested a large amount of money on the battery bank for your residential solar power system, you want to make sure you spend some time maintaining it.

Not everyone knows how to maintain a battery properly. I did the research on the web and the best manual that I found on deep cycle battery care is the “Electric Golf Cart Battery Guide” from www.golfcartbatteryguide.info.

It also offers the best value for money. The e-book is selling for only $19.95!

If you are keen to know how to take care of your deep cycle battery bank, check out the manual from the link below.

==> Click here to visit the Electric Golf Cart Battery Guide now!