Pre-heating batteries when its cold..

[Glamsland]

Have any of you tried to pre-heat thd vatteries in the wintettime? When its realy cold at my cabin, and the batteries are located in a cold shed, i notised that i can't get the same amont of power out from the bank, as in the summer.. thats normal.. but what if i start the generator, use some heatfoil or cables under and around the batteries for heating? Run for a while.. batteries gets warmer, and works better.. ? What do you think? Waste of money and time?

[Mike90250]

Anticipating winter thermal loss is part of properly sizing the the bank. A warmer bank is more lively, but has a shorter lifetime. Run the generator, and simply charging FLA batteries will warm them up a bit, heater not needed, and while the generator is running, you have microwave and blow dryer too !

[Glamsland]

Thanks

[peakbagger]

BTW, this works with lead acid chemistries, I am not sure its applicable to Lithium Chemistries that I think have a hard low temp limit.

[Mike90250]

Li batteries get really lazy below 40F. and are unsafe to recharge below 33F (actually 32F, but do you know how accurate your $10 thermometer is vs your $2K battery )