Peter_DM

I have 2 older HP Xeon servers in there, plus 2 newer i7 servers, 2 NAS servers, plus sundry other tin. It all adds up temperature wise! The article you refer to does make for interesting reading, but my worry with raising the temperature would still be that I'm then also raising the humidity (not a good thing); albeit the reduction in electricity required would be nice.

Thanks for that Stoic. I should have clarified though - I'm looking to mount them vertically, and rotated i.e. cables pointing upwards unlike their sample diagram. This is a problem with some older hard drives - they could be mounted any way except on their "head" - I'm hoping the same does not apply to these batteries I guess I'll have to experiment once I have them.

Thanks TTT. My reasoning for dropping the temperature was for the computer servers - they prefer the lower temperatures. I'll experiment with that though. I will also check with my local sparky, but I suspect he won't know - there's not many solar installations locally. As at now, I'm still very much in the preparation phase for the legislation. I wasn't even aware that there are differences between provinces; I thought it was per municipality, so was waiting for further details locally. I'll check this as well with my sparky.

Hi All, I'm a NOOB on this forum, but have had a Solar installation for several years, and hope some of the knowledgeable people here can assist me with some questions regarding a battery upgrade project. As a bit of background, I have 2 Axpert 5KVA Inverters, each with 12 Canadian Solar 270W panels, currently hooked up to a battery array of 8 strings of 4 100Ah Lead Acid batteries (i.e. 32 batteries total). During the first few years of my installation, I had endless problems causing the Inverters to die every few months with major corrosion problems; the area I'm in (KZN coast) has very high humidity. I then decided to "steal" one meter from the back of the garage, and build a server room with an air-con fitted. Since moving the Inverters (plus all my computer servers, etc.) in there, I've had no more issues. I’ve set the air-con to DRY mode; it generally runs at about 16°C. I've now decided it's time to upgrade the storage side of my installation, and what I've decided (haven't ordered yet, but about to) is to get 4 x Pylontech 2.4kWh units. I have also looked into the 2nd Life batteries from Herholdts, but the price delta doesn't make sense to me - I'd rather have the full cycle life for not very much more money. So, now to my questions: Air-con or not: For obvious reasons, my existing battery bank is in an adjacent room (basically a lean-to behind the garage), with plenty of ventilation. I'm faced with the choice of mounting the new batteries either in the Air-con Server Room, or modifying the existing Battery Storage Room (i.e. enclosing it better). What my research assistant (Google) and I have discovered is that batteries are negatively affected (pun intended) by lower temperature. However, when delving deeper into the actual research, it's generally focused on sub-zero (Celsius) temperatures. My gut feeling is that I'd rather live with reduced efficiency due to the lower temperature, rather than the increased wear and tear due to the humidity; I’d appreciate any thoughts on this matter. Mounting direction: All images of these form factor batteries show the batteries in the same direction – horizontal and usually in a rack mount case. However, given that I have a severely limited area that I wish to mount them in, mounting them vertically against a wall would be far more convenient. As far as I can tell, this would not be an issue with these batteries, and I’d make up my own brackets to ensure they are well attached to the wall. Again, any thoughts? Legality: With the looming legislation that we will all have to conform to at some point in time, I’d rather get things right up front, rather than having to correct them later, so I have two sub questions: If I do mount the batteries vertically, would I run into issues with the CoC? I seem to recall reading that several components (by my understanding anything with wires that could be accidentally pulled) need to be behind lock and key. My entire “Server Room” is behind lock and key, but would this be sufficient for the CoC? Thanks in advance for any help / thoughts.