Solar Power Forklift Battery Bank Maintenance & Update

Working on my solar power forklift battery bank. Once a week I have to add distilled water to the forklift battery that I use for solar energy storage. This is the main battery that powers my tiny house on wheels.

I am fully off the grid, on 56 acres of land which is behind another 40 acres. There are no other access points to my land. It is surrounded by forest on all other sides. This also means that I have no electric or water connections. I have to provide all my own needs.

My solar forklift battery bank looses about half a gallon of water per week. I have to put this back in or risk damage to the battery cells. This is a 750 AH forklift battery with six 2 volt cells making it a 12 volt battery. This is perfect for my off grid solar application.

I have two sets of 600 watt solar panels connected to my forklift battery through an 800 watt Tristar MPPT solar charge controller. This gives me morning and afternoon power.

Eventually I need to get a second solar charge controller so that I can connect more solar panels to my tiny house on wheels.

My forklift battery bank seems to have a problem though because it has never been above 12.2 volts at rest since the day I got it. I thought when it was first delivered that it simply needed a top off. So I ran my DC generator for days on end but with no success. At the end of each day the battery rested at 12.2 volts.

I have since been using it daily in my tiny house on wheels and it never falls below 12.0 volts by the morning hours. I do need to get it replaced while it is still under warranty.

I have been running my laptop all day and late into the night every day. I generally have it running and processing or uploading videos all day when the sun is shining. After the sun goes down I am generally inside working on YouTube comments.

I run my LED lights as needed in the off grid tiny home. I charge my Ryobi battery packs as needed. Sometimes I charge 5 or 6 battery packs in a single day.

I charge my AA, AAA, C and D flashlight batteries to power all my portable devices.

I charge my tablet, cell phone and video cameras every day.

Now, in the hotter months, I run my 10 inch 12 volt DC fan about twelve hours per day on the solar forklift battery bank.

My modem stays on 24/7 now and I have no need to turn off the power inverter anymore either.

I have a laser printer that I use as needed to print documents. This uses 400 watts peak when it is printing.

Recently I have also been running a tiny power inverter outside off the forklift battery bank to power an air pump for my fish in the aquaponics system. This runs 24/7.

That about sums up the items I run off my solar power system in my tiny house on wheels.

I hope to built a porch/greenhouse in front of my tiny house. This will wrap around the end where the batteries currently are. I will then have my rain water collection and battery back in a sheltered, insulated room off the back of the tiny house. This will be passively heated by the sun in the day and by my tiny house wood stove by night.

Some of you may remember that my tiny house was between 80 and 100 degrees all winter with all my windows open. The tiny house is well insulated and the wood stove is too large for it. This means that I have heat energy to spare which will be used to heat the greenhouse in winter.

I plan to have an aquaponics system in the greenhouse. This will provide me with food all year round.

Follow my daily progress on the path to self sufficiency on my off grid solar homestead.
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