[creeky]

I'm lookin' for some smoke ... off the tires that is.

I just shut down the farm. It's going to be tough living in the city. Hydronic floor heat. 24/7 grid power that I didn't make. No wood chopping. No morning fire in the woodstove. No long cold walks. No howling coyotes. Sigh.

Anyway. The last two days as I shut down the systems the batteries were in their box with the inverter on "idle." Initial temp was 5C. By day two they were down to -2.

The inverter doesn't generate enough heat to keep the batteries above 0 with no load. It was also quite cold. The past two days saw a high of 0. Low last night was -10.

The battery box never did get finished. I had 3 sides at R30. And 3 sides at R12-15. So there is that.

If I decide to go back to full four season use I will add an electric heater. And a charger. I would be able to charge and heat for say an hour every few days off the generator just to keep things tidy.

Having said that. The lowest fall/early winter voltage level was that 43.6 I think I reported earlier. And I went 5 days several times without making it to full charge.

All without using the generator or an alternate charge source.

So I consider this a stupendous success. My previous lead acid battery required charging virtually every day during this time of year. The reasons are not just the shorter days. Its the very cloudy weather we get here.

Now I await spring. The battery after two days on "idle" is at 47.25. This is too high. I was hoping to get it down to 3.8 or 3.7/cell (not 3.9). So I may hop out to the farm now and again and just turn on some lights. Use the inverter. Enjoy a "ski" day.

Now to start the "solar boat" plan. And build a few high voltage systems with the new pack. Happy holidays to all.

Lithium rules!