Will rain/moisture damage my AGM battery?

[zcapozzi]

Hi all,

I've got a small experimental off grid system with a bunch of sensors to measure panel output, battery level, and usage through the inverter. Panel is 100W/20V, battery is a 34Ah AGM Sun xTender, and I've got a Sunsaver 12v charge controller.

I recently got a second 34 Ah Sun xTender battery as a wedding present (glad we invited that couple), but it is going to make my battery/inverter set up a little bit bigger than I really want to have in my living room. So I want to move the battery/sensor set-up outside with the inverter inside the house.

My biggest question before doing this is whether there will be any detrimental effects on the batteries from rain/weather? Will moisture damage the batteries; I'd specifically be worried about some kind of short or arc? I'm planning to store the batteries in a plastic bin or something like that, but do I need to completely seal it so that it won't get any moisture in there? Is moisture not a concern at all?

Any suggestions you all have would be greatly appreciated.

- Zack

[Mike90250]

Direct rain that puddles on the top, is bad.

Dirt/dust that collects in a film on the top (creating a conductive path from + to -) is bad.

Bright light from the sun has UV which will degrade the plastic battery case.

[SunEagle]

Also if the batteries are far from the inverter you will need to increase the size of the wiring to keep the voltage drop @ or below 2%.