makavele:


Although I have not been to the roof (except once, to satisfy my adrenaline-induced curiosity very early this year); I am dead sure the panels are dust-free and not yet due for washing. Asides for the fact that the latest addition to the mix is barely 4 months old; the environment is strictly controlled. Thus I am more inclined to go with a burn out or multiple burnt units; since shading is also out of the equation. Sadly, I am unable to go up and check with a clamp meter; as I would be needing a super-long ladder; as it is a detached building plus insurance clause too.

[b]p.s.: I had noticed this issue even before the rains came and on very cloudless amazingly "hot" days. Where I come to Nairaland and everybody is throwing a party as to massive kWh generated, but my own case seemed different.Sad!!!
and should i say i noticed this, the moment i switched to 48V. All seemed good while I was on 24V. Confusing, righ[/b]t?

How are the panels connected.

4llerbuntu:
I need a bit of guidance here.

I'm a complete noob so be gentle.


I'd like to setup STRIP LED lights all over my apartment,
to serve as emergency/ rechargeable light connected to a 12V battery.

Obviously, the battery will need charging.


Id prefer if the strip LEDs also used 12V direct and not AC power. But given the size of the apartment, there's going to be quite a lot. Easily say 150feet of LEDs


That's the general idea

What I need is advice/directions on how to to do this on a budget. Thanks

First question is. Why would you like it to be powered by 12v battery?

What is the power input rating for the stripe led? Does it take direct dc and if yes what is the dc voltage requirement.

Lastly what do you intend to use in charging the battery. Solar or battery charger?

If you ask me I will say it is better to just use dc directly. You will safe yourself a lot of hassle while aligning the setup to the kiss principle. (Keep It Simple Stupid) DC might sound a good idea on paper but in practice when you have to deal with charging the dc source and combating voltage loss might just be better to use an AC to DC buck converter and get going with your life.

Post like this peeves me. How can you list a car list all spec but not include price. Price that is the most important aspect of a sale. It shows something is fishy or the Op is ashame of the high price. I am in the market for a car and hyundai is in my range but I will never waste my time calling for something that should be readily available. How many people I go call? People sha.

pranil:
The system if finally online

After waiting for the Y inverter board to be replaced due to different firmware and my vacation the system went live on Saturday . Everything seems to be running fine. small tweaking is still going on
The main components

3 x 5 KVA Victron Quatrro
6 KVA fronius symo
250 /70 CC Victron Smart Solar
150/70 CC Victron Blue solar
Venus GX
BYD PRo 10 KWh 48 V
Zeihl 1001E islanding relay
Carlo Gavazzi 3 phase energy meter ( modbus)
Victron Lynx 1000 Amp busbar
Various panels making up 2926 Wp ( Solar world) , 3400 Wp ( Canadian Solar) , 2440 ( yahsun)
20 KVA caterpillar Generator

The system is running ESS ( grid parallel) with 350 watt import allowed no export allowed. That way all teh solatr produced is consumed by teh loads even if NEpa is present.

In absence of NEPA the Generator autostarts/ Stops if the battery is below 60 % ( during day) or below 80 % ( during night)

ESS in action - youtube link -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hb5A0IgOV5w

The gold standard of large scale solar installation.

DUNKA:
Please house I need your views/opinion on this issue below.
If you wanted an Axpert 3kva inverter and a dealer had sent you pictures and agreed on the price and you sent the dealer the agreed funds awaiting delivery.

Dealer then confirmed that inverter had been sent. Fine no problem only at the point of collection the inverter you discover that the dealer sent you MustPower 3kva inverter without informing you.

Please how would you handle this? How would you feel?


I kindly need your candid thoughts on the above scenario.

Easy, you send the product back. Voltronic the oem of axpert released a notice warning people of must power calling them out as a fake and imitation of their product. My advise is to jelly return the goods and seek refund. Such a dealer can't be trusted. Don't be duped. I wonder why you even brought this up. This is clear as day.

remizvxcq:


Indeed, a direct connection using the 4-pin audio cable did not do the job. Kindly share your learning as you go.
I might just order a bunch of ve-direct to usb cables, and then connect the CCGX, BMV and other devices together to a powered usb hub.

bigrovar: my search of the archives indicates that you were trying to diy a ve-direct to usb cable back in June. Can you share your learning, please

There are some hacks involving ve-direct cables shared online.
This one replaces the ve.direct RS232/Serial-to-USB cable http://beta.ivc.no/wiki/index.php/Victron_VE_Direct_DIY_Cable
A youtube video with incoherent explanation of a ve-direct diy can be found https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wkZpI_BRmB4
Another incoherent ve-direct to bluetooth hack, with code can be found https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wkZpI_BRmB4

20 SETS Mini Micro JST 2.0 PH 4-Pin Connector plug with Wires Cables 120MM 12CM
http://s.aliexpress.com/NRZbaiYj?fromSns=Copy to clipboard

The above might just be what you need. It is what I used for my own DIY vedirect to usb cable. The vedirect male to vedirect female cable can also been made using the above link. It has 20 males and female cables. Just be sure not to connect the positive feed. I used just the ground tx and rx and what works just fine.

Namzy:
Finally installed my 3kva ipowerplus and 24v 220ah luminous tubular batteries last week. Been great so far thanks to @kiekie for the timely delivery of the batteries and thanks to this wonderful forum and men like DUNKA, Chris, and of course bigrovar who I want to be when I grow up . Waiting for 11.11 Aliexpress sales to get me some clamp meter, HA01 and DC battery monitors. Jury still out on powerpulse desulphator as research is still ongoing

you are welcome. Keep us updated. Let us know how it all went. Which of the tubular battery did you get?

NiyiOmoIyunade:
28.8v absorb for 24v nominal system and 14.4v absorb for 12v nominal system.

This is good news for the OP then - for whatever reason, I have never observed a SuKam that went past 13.8v charging voltage but I have seen a Luminous and Sinergy get into 14.4v range.

I may have to reopen the chapter on these Indian design inverters - it seems my very brief experience with them has misled me to underrate them - I recall Oga GeorgeD1 and Barezzi also once confirmed to me that their SuKams could withstand equalization above 15v per 12v battery yet the 1 unit I borrowed for testing once would go into overload and trip off at high DC voltages - this would be the 3.5kVA 48v Fusion series - perhaps the unit already had an internal fault because I know it conked off soon after.

This I can also confirm. If you note I use a floaded acid battery and as a result sometimes hit close to 32v during equalization. Not once did the sukam go off during equalisation charge it always held firm. The same can not be said of my current axpert 3ks inverter which trips off once voltage hit 30. Sukam especially the falcon plus model I tried are very reliable and stable. They have relatively low idle load watt usage (the 1.6kva 24v uses about 28w) They offer simple design but use quality internals. The down side of the simplicity is the lack of charge profile control and a relatively weak charge current especially if you are using them without solar.

remizvxcq:
Thanks for welcoming me.

I want to share a recent experience of using Outback Flexmax FM80 within the Victron ecosystem.
Issue: Victron CCGX (using the Multiplus as the default battery monitor) is confused by solar charging of battery bank by a non-Victron charge controller.

10:00am PHCN is off. OFM80 is charging the battery bank. Even in bright sunlight, with the OFM80 charging the battery bank upwards, the CCGX is reporting depletion of the battery bank SOC%. CCGX reports correctly that battery voltage is changing in line with the reports of the OFM80 and the BMV712Smart, but the CCGX SOC % is not correct.
1:40am PHCN resumes, and Multiplus switches to Float. OFM80 and BMV712 and CCGX reports similar voltage. But CCGX continues to show depleting SOC% levels even with both solar charging and PHCN charging going into the inverter, and battery voltage is going up!
2:80pm Eventually, the MultiPlus is switched off and restarted. After a brief pause, the SOC jumps from 55% Bulk to 85% Absorption. Within next 10 minutes, it jumps from 86% Absorption to 100% Float.
Recommendation
1. a Ve.Direct cable between the BMV712Smart and the CCGX that enables the BMV to be the reference battery monitor instead of the MultiPlus.
2. Alternatively, a contactor which stops and restarts the MultiPlus after a few minutes in order to enable the SOC algorithm within the MultiPlus to catch up. This would however mess with the UPS function of the MultiPlus, and adds complexity.


current system: 3.18kWp Solar Array = 9x270w Trinasolar Mono & 3x250w Solarworld AG Poly; Victron Multiplus 5kVa; Outback Flexmax FM80; Quanta Amaron 200AH@48v; 7.5kVa Kipor diesel genset; Gas cooker; Energy efficient appliances; Passive cooling & heating of buildings.

I have the ccgx to be over rated. I had a chance to go with it when I was looking at logging and remote monitoring options. For the price it is nothing more than a portable victron connect. Logging real time logging and data collection and aggregation can only be gained if linked up with victron vrm service and the option for Internet connectivity are very very limited for the device. The biggest draw back is not being device agnostic. It is designed to integrate with victron product alone and would thus only work in victron ecosystem. It is for these reason that I settled to using a Pi and Emoncms for my logging and I have not regretted over 4 month down the line.

NiyiOmoIyunade:
Does the SuKam Falcon have the ability to take the batteries to a proper absorb voltage between 14.1v to 14.8v per 12v battery?

Spending a few hours in absorb after each deep discharge is critical to the batteries long term health and performance.

Except the intended use is very light cycles (minimal discharge)

Having used the sukam falcon plus (first the 12v then 24v) for over a year. I can confirm that it is capable of absorption voltage at 28. 8v or 12.4v for 24 and 12v respectively. I had a watt/ voltage monitor attached permanently to the battery bank and I could see the battery voltage in the fly. I can also confirm that the current going into the battery is in line with stated specifications.

NiyiOmoIyunade:
I was wondering where you were going with the whole SGs thingy before installing a balancer. One can never be too careful sha

All 12v nominal batteries are made up of 6 sets of 2v cells connected in series whether they are sealed or FLA. A balancer can only address issues common to all the cells and may not be of much use if a specific cell is drifting or weak vs. others in the same battery. This is one of the advantages of FLA in that one can check the state of each individual cell and apply corrective measures where required as well as the ability to perform equalizations and replace water.

Regardless, battery balancers are like the next best thing after sliced bread and they work wonders to keep series connected batteries in sync even under challenging usage conditions. I have used them with great success for both FLA and sealed batteries. They are best applied to a battery bank from day one before any issues or one battery getting weaker than the others comes up and I heartily recommend them to all and sundry.

Nothing more to add my brother. You have said it all. The ability to check the performances of each cell in a bank and apply equalisation charge when necessary is why FLA does it for me. Their rugged nature and relative longer life is why I will always pick them over AGM any day.

earthrealm:


we are all interested, though i think the balancer sees a single 12v batt..n doesnt see each individual cell, so unless there is wide variation in SG, i dont see how it would be a problem to the balancer.
i just removed my desulphator and installed ha02 balancer to my fla bank. suprisingly all 4 batts were in sync, just 1 off by 0.01v, simply amazing..after almost 2 years

flooded acid rarely require battery balancers as long has they get proper equalisation charge once a month.

I watched the video and it is saddening how the ordinary Nigeria is treated like a dog even after he was duped by a pesident chief of staff. I expected that this story would resonate with people and we would make it go viral so that justice can be done. But alas. This people are heartless and today it is this poor villager with no connection. Tomorrow it could be you.

Ativ:


Did you need a DC DC buck converter to reduce the dc voltage to 12V?

It came with an AC to DC converter, you might need a buck converter if you intend to use it with relatively high voltage DC

chris81964:

I am looking for low wattage ceiling fan. I will need about 75. It could be DC or AC
Whatsapp is +12018154132

I got 2 low power ceiling fan from Juo about 4 days ago and I am been really impressed by their performance. The lowest speed for the fan is about 5w (I checked with my battery monitor) and the max speed (which is faster than any ceiling fan has any right to be) is 40w. At a speed level of 1 to 5 I often find 2 to be sufficient for all needs. 3 4 and 5 are just too insane for me. Speed two is about 10w. I did a video comparison with a conventional fan which I will share with a proper review very soon

efuro:


Nigerian firms and warranty issues.

My experience with SOLNERGY

Few months ago when sunshine solar modules
were looked down upon as 'no where to go' when doing serious solar installation. I placed order for four 150w modules
Unfortunately there was a mixup by the boy in the store, I was supplied 3 -150w plus 1-130w receiving the items I made a complain and was promised a remedy in my
next purchase. So I installed them. About 4 weeks after i noticed, I considerable drop in harvest after running a trace, I discovered the 130w was burnt
I removed and contacted SOLNERGY hoping to hear "no bi me do am now?". Therefore I was surprised when I was asked to send the picture which I did. behold I was sent a new 150w through a driver and told to forward the damaged 130w.

In another occasion, I placed an urgent order for 3 panels of same 150w, it was sent by haice bus. Sadly 2 got broken when it was delivered. I contacted SOLNERGY who spoked with the driver to send to them back using their NURTW vehicle returning back, I got fresh delivery a week later and by then my sense of urgency had died.

My fellow diy, pros or marketers, I am not related to SOLNERGY, I am not in anyway advertising them, am just encouraging dealers in the house to take warranty issues seriously as they take their profits margin seriously. Many solar dreams are dead and many more are scared due to bad installation/ irredeemable warranty issues. I know Nigerians will get it right some day.


In a related development regarding sunshine modules, [b]I recently acquired ten 300w modules (3kw) for my upcoming upgrade. [/b]Presently I don't have money to complete roof mounting so today I decided to test 4 modules (2x2) arranged carefully placing them on benches. I never expected the result I got more or less from sunshine PV modules. Imagine getting 1,170w from 1,200w (98%) despite darker clouds and rain droplets.

This under rated PV modules is really value for money 'at last' for me. I don't feel 2nd tier anymore.

Kindly check the snap shots below. Am happy and wish all solar lovers enough juice & happy days ahead.

Thank you for your time and i look forward to hearing similar experiences for the benefit of those hoping to joined RE/AE stuff.

How do you intend to configure the 10 modules. 5 x 5? ie 5 in parallel?

Namzy:

Yes I understand but I'm talking about inverters with the battery type selector which the new Indian inverters and the Axpert clone ipowerplus has attached is from manual of axpert Mks and my bro Eastman hybrid inverter

First of all, ipoweplus is not an Axpert Mks clone. It IS axpert Mks in all but name. It was made by Voltronic the axpert Oem for zinox Nigeria.

Secondly and to your earlier question. Most Indian inverters do have settings for tubular batteries. However I have not observed the difference between charge profile when you use for example tubular charge settings on the Indian inverters. I once wrote to sukam to ask if their inverter is capable of equalisation and I was told it does though in close to a year of using the inverter I never once observed it carry out equalisation (maybe it did but I never observed it)

And you are right on one thing tubular battery is the dominant battery in India the way AGM dominate Nigeria. The reason is because it was built specifically for Indian environment and they are installed with after sale services incorporated in pricing so when you buy a tubular battery you get periodic maintenance visits from the seller to carry out water top up maintenance. Another reason why the battery seem to last in India is because at 1.2kw per Capita compared to Nigeria which has 20w per Capita Indians have much better access to reliable electricity than Nigeria hence 1 layer of battery bank is sufficient for most homes. The highest battery capacity is 150ah to 180ah so the 15A dc current charge output of Indian inverters is just adequate for the battery (that is 10% of the battery capacity at c20) . When you add all this and reliable power you will u understand why batteries in India will last longer when used with Indian inverters.

Not equalising a battery won't kill it over night. It will just whittle down its capacity and lifespan. A battery can last for 4 years but have less than 40% of its original capacity left .another can last for 4 years and still have over 80% of original capacity left. Users of both batteries will boost about their batteries lasting for 4 years and would be right. You just need to ask yourself which of the 4 year camp would you rather be at?

Anyone here has experience with the ipowerplus especially this model https:///ipowerplus-ipower-200bs-200ah-12v-front-terminal-battery-slim-battery-3824133

Barezzi:
Words on marble! Lemme quote it for posterity.

I always advocate:
1. Size Solar Panels for daily consumption+system losses weather (24hrs)
2. Size batteries for night time consumption only (5pm to 7am) This should represent about 30% of battery bank capacity.
From you submission below, i have reviewed (2) above.

The above has been my guiding principle with solar. This is why I have been able to get the best from my lean setup. It is why the battery has lasted for so long.

earthrealm:

you could sell off the batts, am certain people would rush them if the price is low enough, its a miracle your 2 batt setup has survived this long, guess you aint married, or madam n the kids hv thoroughly understood the system, or you installed some non-human/emotionless control tech

The electrical appliance at home and the offgrid system were designed to work hand in hand. All I did was inform on when the fridge and freezer goes on and comes on, The wife and teenagers in the house have been properly briefed.

NiyiOmoIyunade:
There is another key part of the puzzle which is having a suitably sized battery bank - one rule of thumb is to size for 3 days of autonomy - in an offgrid scenario where my daily usage (evening to morning) is about 150ah (incl. 1 inverter AC overnight) and I can generate 300ah to 400ah of power daily and on a bad day say at least 100ah to 200ah, I literally do not care what the weather is or what the sun is doing.

This size of system does not come cheap however and it may be more economical to run a Gen to meet any temporary power gaps. I am fortunate that I never had to pay for any solar panels I have, they were all paid for by my esteemed clients all I had to pay for were inverters and batteries and I got a super deal on my 48v 800Ah battery bank thanks to JUO.

The bold part is where the weakness of lead acid battery rears its head. I tend to ensure that a battery bank gets fully charged at least within a 24 hours cycle. This is plus shallow depth of discharge is why the battery is still doing fine and refusing to die. Keeping the battery in a partial state of charge for higher than 3 days will eventually cause sulphation little by little (this is just my fear sha so maybe I am wrong) I tend to limit my consumption to what I can sustainability generate back into the bank rather than storage capacity.

NiyiOmoIyunade:
You probably need to oversize your array and perhaps tweak some other parts of your system too e.g go to 48v nominal

You have squeezed some spectacular results from a very lean system but at some point you have to just get more capacity to cater for the 'rainy day' literally and figuratively.

Of my 7.6kw PV array, only 3kw is enough for my day to day needs including heating and 24/7 refrigeration, the extra 4.6kw is a large allowance for poor weather and my almost compulsive desire to run two ACs nearly 24/7 no matter how good or bad the weather is.

I have plans to upgrade but they are some issues I have to consider. First I have 2 batteries that have refused to die.. There is the economic guilt of discarding batteries that are still waxing strong since I can't mix them with new ones. I also have limited roof space. Best I can do is a 2.4kw pv system which might still not be enough. Increase in capacity would lead to increase in consumption which would lead to another equilibrium and bring back to square one. There is no change I am increasing to 7kw.. Due to space considerations. For now I just have to use some of those nepa saving all year round to pay for fuel. 6 gen hours a day is enough to fill any energy deficiency.. I a week or 2 the sun would come back from vacation.

August can't pass soon enough. It is one bad day after another

DMerciful:
It is like powering a 1 room apartment with a mikano......mikano self consumption is higher than the load on it hence fuel efficiency is tending towards zero

Barezzi:
If the instantaneous loads will never exceed 1.5kw at ANY point in time, why use a 10kva 96v inverter?

Other than the deep crater in your wallet, the battery bank will hardly be cycled. With the inverter operating at max 2% loading,
the batteries will live forever.

A total waste of resources if I might add.

Feshizzy:

Thank you for your reply,
I checked the Volt readings when the battery were full and it was 54v,
My major concern is that, is the battery meant to be still warm when it's fully charged?
Charging source is from the grid.

you might be dealing with a short cell. From the nominal voltage it seems you have at least 4 batteries in the bank. Do all the batteries have the same warm temp and produce hissing sound? Try and feel your hand be the side of the battery to see if the warmess is evenly distributed or if some parts are much warmer. Age of the battery would also be a good addition.

Saipro:

I intended to include tubular at the mid-level but felt it would expand the scope of comparison beyond USB and Trojan. Having said that, I wholly agree with your submission.

PS: Can I have your WhatsApp number? We need to have some backstage chats

0 8 1 3 1 8 7 9 5 1 0

Saipro:
For the record, all batteries fail eventually including flooded lead acid chemistry cells.

My experience with US batteries has been a bit different with 2 sets on 2 sites not requiring watering in 12 & 15 months respectively despite heavy use (35 - 50% drain almost daily). Both were 24V setups, had a VIL inverter and used 6V XC L16 batteries each. ePsolar 60A iTracer with no temperature compensation, no equalization and absorb set to 28.8V, float at 26.4V. I have a similar setup running in my dad's place, thoroughly abused (routine 80% drain) yet they're alive and fairly strong after 3 years (I'd say they're down to about 50 - 70% capacity now).

I did my research before choosing USB L16 and global end user reports generally rate them better than their Trojan counterparts. Trojan 6V L16 batteries rock too but are less tolerant of abuse. The 12V versions for both of them require serious minding. I can as well attest to that.

Having said that, for the small home user, little else beats the Trojan T105-RE. They're literally indestructible. Something I can attest to again. It just so happens those of us who bought from these shores a few years back got lemons. Asides the few odd ones which failed, the others are living up to their reputation.

My recommendation for FLA:
- starter batteries should be Trojan T105 (the plain cheap ones). They'll serve while providing the learning experience.
- small systems should use Trojan T105-RE up to a max of 3 strings in any config (12V, 24V, 36V or 48V). Suitable alternatives would be any L16 (except the 6V RE USB and the 12V non-RE Trojan)
- larger systems should get either L16 USB (also sold as Penn, Deka and a few other brand names) or go for small industrial Trojans

I will also like to recommend Luminous Indian Tubular batteries. Honestly Tubular batteries have one advantage over the US flooded batteries. They are designed for tropical environments i.e higher humidity and temperature and unreliable charge supply. They can take massive amount of abuse, rarely ever gets warm, and experience minimum water loss. The 2 powering my system have refused to die which I find bothersome. Oga pranil even confirm to me backstage that the lead plates are actually made in the USA. It seems they took the best of tubular technology usually found in single cell high capacity batteries and applied it to a 6 cell battery form factor. Trojan recently collaborated with sukam to make trojan batteries for the Indian Market while French company Schneider Electric snapped up Luminous all together. The level of RnD that has gone into the Indian tubular battery especially their use in an environment like Nigeria with unreliable power supply and hot weather..in addition to often overlooked practical features like electrolyte level indicator flooters are just some of the reason I highly rate the tubular batteries. A company like luminous gets my nod for their presence in Nigeria and wide reach across the country. This makes warranty issues much easier to resolve.

kiekie1:


Nice steps tho for your flooded battery bank and i never knew you wer entirely off the grid supply abinitio. The few examples I sighted all hovers around safe DOD's and sulphation won't occur to be factual... It was once argued few pages ago to intentionally allow your bank drain below 12v sometimes maybe for memory bla bla bla reasons ... Mind you>> here in Lagos , we can't stay over 1 or 2 weeks without sensing Sunlight OK ! It all depends on ones usage et battery bank etcetera.. Cheer's !

Yes o, usage matters a lot.

kiekie1:


Yo yo yo that's quite cool as Oga Pranil has all that , yet creates room for Gen to kick in at certain periods . .. I havnt really had a reason to power my dusty gen set(as seen in snapshot below) for few years now as my battery bank is quite quantifiable and can outstay a week of dull/rainy weather even without grid supply, we simply do more strict daily load management as we have battery volt/% monitors all over(even in madams kitchen ) k...

NB: Mr Niyi has also joined us in large battery bank designs(38400wh) if I remembered correctly , am sure his can outlast 2 weeks of bad weather without AC , microwave, water heater usage to fiddle around 50-60% DOD .. Cheer's

My problem is not large battery bank. But my strategy is to priotize a full battery over all else. Lead acid battery don't like being left in a state of discharge for a long time and one way to get best from them and prevent sulphation is to ensure they get full charge everyday. Hence my battery bank was 85% full when I turned on the gen because solar supply was not enough to charge battery and power the house at the same time.. So it is cheaper to charge battery from solar and power the house with gen..when weather changes for the better I can turn off the gen. If I spend 3k a year on fuel to ensure my battery never stays under charge for more than 18 hours in a cycle.. I think it is money well spent.

kiekie1:


Haha sure nt much a problem for hybrid designs ! Grid supplies compensates charging for most designs down here.. If you are totally off grid, few people are already considering wind turbine integration !! Oga Pranil , over to you as usual ... Happy Sunday to my beloved forumites !!!

wind turbine is an an option in Nigeria we don't have enough wind. I am completely offgrid. This is the 3rd time the generator would be fired up this year the 2k fuel I got is yet to be exhausted so small price. Never had 2 consecutive bad day as my generation log for out going week will indicate, it usually alternate between a bad and very good day. and today might still turn out good.

Na wa for August o. Seems today is going to be yet another bad solar day across Nigeria. Generation has been up down up down.and I have a feeling it will get worse.

NiyiOmoIyunade:
I will kickstart this since no one has commented so far.

I have used US Battery personally and for clients - everything goes well in year one, with very little watering or maintenance required. Then all of a sudden the batteries (one or two in the bank) start to run hot and drop voltage and everything goes downhill from there despite all measures taken to fix - this typically happens about one and a half years into usage. The reference case is the L16 range

For Trojans, it has been a mixed bag, they also suffer sudden failure which I can only explain as a bad batch being brought into Nigeria and foisted on us. Securing a warranty replacement from the source is nearly impossible at least in my own experience since the replacements were out of stock and stayed that way for a very long time. I have also read the sub par experiences of Ogas Chris, Saipro, Abunafiu on this forum as they experienced issues with their Trojans and made valiant efforts to revive them - hopefully they will chime in with their experiences.

It is interesting that Trojans are priced at a premium relative to US Batteries in the US but here in Naija the prices are about the same no thanks to our local sellers.

Much to my surprise, a similar FLA battery (Luminous) has performed pretty stellar when I used them as replacements for the failed Trojans and USBs - these have suffered some serious abuse yet continue to perform wonderfully - I am waiting for the 3 year mark to pass before I conclude on their longevity and ruggedness in service.

I have some theories why Trojan batteries sold in Nigeria often times don't live up to expectation especially when compared to performances from Indian Tubular batteries.

1 - Most of those batteries are poorly maintained in store. Flooded acid battery is very sensitive especially when kept in store. Due to it's high rate of self discharged. Because this fla are kept in storage for a long time, they lose lots of charge and suffer from surlphation due to long time in state of discharge.

2 - Most FLA are shipped dry without electrolyte to reduce cost of shipping and then filled with electrolyte once in Nigeria. The quality of electrolyte added to them in Nigeria is suspect. Often times the electrolyte do not confirm with the right manufacturer recommended gravity and this will in turn affect the performance of the batteries in their service life

3 - Tubular batteries are actually built for the indian market. They are designed to work in a tropical environement, withstand high discharge and above. My Mercury tubular battery procured sometimes in 2015 is still going strong without showing any sign aging, The good performance from the mercury has created a problem for me where I am unable to expand my storage capacity.. I can not mix new and old batteries and economics will not allow me to sideline the old one since they are still waxing strong. In all 3 years of having the batteries I have not experience them getting hot even when equalising at close to 16v per battery they stay mildly warm at most.