What the Heck are We Doing Wrong?

[eric@psmnv]

The generator has a 220V cord that is broken out into 2 x 110V circuits, each one going to an Iota DLS-55 charger that converts from AC to DC and then into the batteries. In theory, each charger should be pushing 55A into the battery bank, but I don't know how to tell if that is really happening. I can tell you that I have rarely if ever seen the battery voltage go above 14.1. If it takes 14.8 to charge it,then I'm sure you are right. The batteries are not getting charged.

[robbyg]

I am not an expert but something seems wrong with that charging voltage. I don't know which one of the three Trojan T-105 versions you own but if I use even the cheapest version, the charging on the data sheet says

Bulk charge = 7.41V
Float charge = 6.75V
Equalize Charge = 8.10V

Your 14V or 7V per cell is below the Bulk charge rate. My guess is that you are not charging these batteries even close to capacity.
I am not expert on Flooded batteries, so maybe someone else can chime in. BTW if you are changing the batteries get Lithium Iron Phosphate batteries.
The prices on the cheap ones are getting ridiculously low.

[eric@psmnv]

We have 8 Trojan T-105 6V batteries configured as a 12V bank (4 strings of 2). Each battery provides 225Ah, so that should give us 450Ah at 50% DoD. Our cabin only draws 2.5A during the day and less at night. (I measured it at various times of day, and different days of the week, using a Kill-a-Watt on the inverter's AC output feed to the cabin). I'm new to all this, but shouldn't 450Ah give us a crazy amount of runtime? Like somewhere in excess of 100 hours? Our solar isn't enough to charge the batteries, so we end up running a 6500W generator for several hours a day. We run the genny for about 3 hours, and during that time the batteries measure 14V. When we turn off the genny, the batteries drop to around 12.3V, and we get 3-6 hours of runtime before they are down to 12.0 again (or lower). Clearly we are doing something wrong. I want to buy a whole new solar system, but not until I know what I'm doing. Otherwise I'll just kill the new one.