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Will rain/moisture damage my AGM battery?

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  • Will rain/moisture damage my AGM battery?

    Hi all,

    I've got a small experimental off grid system with a bunch of sensors to measure panel output, battery level, and usage through the inverter. Panel is 100W/20V, battery is a 34Ah AGM Sun xTender, and I've got a Sunsaver 12v charge controller.

    I recently got a second 34 Ah Sun xTender battery as a wedding present (glad we invited that couple), but it is going to make my battery/inverter set up a little bit bigger than I really want to have in my living room. So I want to move the battery/sensor set-up outside with the inverter inside the house.

    My biggest question before doing this is whether there will be any detrimental effects on the batteries from rain/weather? Will moisture damage the batteries; I'd specifically be worried about some kind of short or arc? I'm planning to store the batteries in a plastic bin or something like that, but do I need to completely seal it so that it won't get any moisture in there? Is moisture not a concern at all?

    Any suggestions you all have would be greatly appreciated.

    - Zack

  • #2
    Direct rain that puddles on the top, is bad.

    Dirt/dust that collects in a film on the top (creating a conductive path from + to -) is bad.

    Bright light from the sun has UV which will degrade the plastic battery case.
    Powerfab top of pole PV mount (2) | Listeroid 6/1 w/st5 gen head | XW6048 inverter/chgr | Iota 48V/15A charger | Morningstar 60A MPPT | 48V, 800A NiFe Battery (in series)| 15, Evergreen 205w "12V" PV array on pole | Midnight ePanel | Grundfos 10 SO5-9 with 3 wire Franklin Electric motor (1/2hp 240V 1ph ) on a timer for 3 hr noontime run - Runs off PV ||
    || Midnight Classic 200 | 10, Evergreen 200w in a 160VOC array ||
    || VEC1093 12V Charger | Maha C401 aa/aaa Charger | SureSine | Sunsaver MPPT 15A

    solar: http://tinyurl.com/LMR-Solar
    gen: http://tinyurl.com/LMR-Lister

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    • #3
      Also if the batteries are far from the inverter you will need to increase the size of the wiring to keep the voltage drop @ or below 2%.

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