Bush Man

For the record, it did come on by itself after a couple of hours of sun.

For the record, it did come on by itself after a couple of hours of sun.

Went to Sinetech yesterday to collect my replacement 150Ah battery (thank you!) Sat down with Karl.  He's their senior technical sales manager and really seems to know his stuff - been doing batteries for about 20 years.
He remains adamant that one needs an intial charge current of around 25% of capacity for AGM Gel batteries, irrespective of the depth of discharge of the battery.  His words were "amperage is key".  He said that if there is not enough current, the impedence (or resistance) of the battery increases which leads to negative chemical processes in the AGM Gel batteries that he explained but that I didn't quite follow.  I mentioned that my three stage charger only does bulk charge up to about 12.5V on the Omnipowers, and then goes into absorption stage with a reduced current.  Karl said that even if the battery is at 12.8V, you still need the high initial charge current.
Karl's suggestion was that with my very limited base load of 1500Wh per 24h day (energy efficient fridges and LED lighting only) I would be much better off if I removed one of the two strings of 150Ah batteries and add 2-3 more panels to my current 1500W array for more current.  My depth of discharge would go up from 10% on two strings to 20% on one string, However, he says this would have a much smaller impact on these batteries' longevity than the shortage of current that I have at present.  I'm not sure how to calculate the amps currently produced by the panels (6 x 250 Watt Enersols, 2 strings of 3 each).  However, Karl says they do not even provide enough current for a single string of 150Ah batteries (36A required), let alone two strings (72A required). He says this will seriously reduce the lifespan of the batteries.
I would appreciate any thoughts.