During this trip to PKH Aoral, we have to replace all the sealed lead acid batteries and change the micro-controller software for the solar charging algorithm for all the solar lamp posts.
Last October 2013, we have installed the 20 solar lamp posts and they were operating as planned until 4 months later when each of the batteries began to have reduced battery storage capacity, i.e. the lamps only light up 3 hours each night before switching off.
We suspected the battery charging algorithm was programmed wrongly as we have performed a hard charging of 14.9Vdc to desulphate the battery and also the charging was under high operating temperature (about 40 degrees Celcius).
We replace it with a new charging algorithm with the maximum charging voltage capped at 14.3Vdc and also provide a shade over the battery box to prevent direct sunlight heating up the battery inside the box.
We hope that the new algorithm and shading for the battery will improved the performance of the solar lamp post and will work with minimum maintenance for the next 2 years.
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