There are some mistakes we think for the solar system, pls check below:

The first is that we added a few more batteries to our little battery bank. When we first purchased our cabin, there was a rudimentary system in place that consisted of four 12 volt deep cycle trolling motor batteries.

Secondly,we decided to upgrade and go with six volt deep cycle golf cart batteries. These batteries have thicker lead plates in them and they are much better suited for renewable energy applications. They cost us a little bit more than the 12 volt marine batteries but we felt like it would be worth the investment.

Thirdly,After having ruined two banks of batteries, we decided to do it right the next time and we invested in some Trojan L-16 deep cycle batteries. If you’re not familiar with these batteries, they are the real deal! They’re probably one of the most commonly used batteries for renewable energy applications and they’re not cheap. They are super heavy duty 6v deep cycle batteries that have the capacity of storing 435 amp hours each. If I remember right, we paid about $300 for each of these batteries and we purchased four of them.

Thus, we need to remember when wiring a bank of batteries together is to use super heavy gauge wires that have high quality connectors on them.

When we first purchased these new high quality batteries we tried to use some wire that we had laying around the house and some connectors we got from a hardware store. Using these wimpy wires, it didn’t take long at all before our new batteries stopped performing as well as they did when they were new. Fortunately for us, all that had happened was the undersized wires and the connections ended up corroding and the corrosion at the connection points caused resistance which resulted in the batteries not charging as well as they should.

Then we need to use heavy gauge cables with properly crimped on copper lug connectors. If I remember right, we went a little bit overboard on this and actually purchased 2 gauge wiring to make sure that there wasn’t any resistance whatsoever in the wires that connected our batteries together.

Moreover, we need to to apply some kind of protective coating to the battery terminals to prevent corrosion. Corrosion will cause resistance and resistance means that your batteries will be less efficient. I believe we just purchased a can of spray on corrosion preventative from our local automotive store and it seems to be working just fine.

In our application, we actually have our bank of batteries in a small enclosed room. During the winter, we have an insulated cover that we constructed that we place over the batteries to keep them warm. This really helps keep the batteries from getting too cold which results in both more efficient charging cycles and more energy being able to be stored in our batteries.

Solar controller can improve battery life

Even under ideal conditions, batteries have a finite number of times that they can be discharged and recharged. This is most commonly referred to as a “charge cycle”. A battery is considered to have gone through a charge cycle when it has been depleted from a full charge down to 20% of its rated capacity.

There is a direct relationship between how deeply a bank of batteries is discharged on a daily basis before being recharged and the amount of time that you can expect the battery bank to last. Without complicating things too much, let’s just say that the deeper the batteries are discharged before they are recharged, the shorter their lifespan will be.

You can increase the lifespan of your battery bank in another way and that is to make sure that whatever you use to charge your battery bank on a daily basis is adequately sized to fully recharge your batteries every day. If you don’t have enough solar panels in your system to fully recharge your batteries each day, your batteries will stay in a constant state of partial charge which will result in their lifespan being shortened.

At last, you need spend time to equalize your flooded lead acid batteries at least once a month. When you equalize a bank of batteries, your charger will basically increase the charging voltage by about 10% for a certain length of time. This causes the electrolyte in the battery to really start bubbling. This bubbling causes the electrolyte to be stirred up which will help maintain an evenly concentrated solution.

All above is good way to prolong your batteries life, if you ignore this, your batteries will become diluted and the solution at the bottom of the batteries will become very concentrated. Be sure and follow the recommendations to make your battery life longer and longer.