What did you do to your Volvo today? Topic is solved

[MrAl]

What I am asking is simply, how much does your solar panel output? If it outputs more than say 30mA to charge your battery , it should stop or at least match your cars normal drain from the battery. The whole point is as you are like me and don't now drive a lot, we use our cars less so we want the battery to be charged when we do use it.

So 2 simple measurements are needed. What is the drain on your battery in everyday sitting in your driveway? It should be around 10-20mA. If your 20W panel can supply at least that or more your car sitting should always have a charged battery.

Neil.

Hi,

Oh ok that sounds good.

I dont know the actual drain on the battery when it is sitting because i cant measure it just yet. I dont want to disconnect the battery and my clamp on ammeter is made for higher amps, up to something like 600 amps, so the resolution wont be good enough to measure 20ma.

Does the panel put out enough to keep the battery charged? Well, up until today, yes. We've had several sunny days.
But for today, NO. Cloud cover keeps the energy from the panel very very low, and that makes sense because the insulation level is around 10 to 15 percent of what it is on a sunny day. There's no way to get even 50 percent power today because the radiation level simply is not there and it must be because of the cloud cover. It will be cloudy all day so i dont expect much.

For some quantitative data, the battery voltage usually starts out at around 12.06 now around 5 to 6am before the sun starts to come up and hit the panel. On a sunny day, it picks up to 12.35v or higher near around 11am. Today, it remains at 12.06v.
The insulation level on a sunny day can reach 650 watts/m^2 but today it's more like 65 watts/m^2. That's about 10 percent.
10 percent of 13 watts is 1.3 watts and that leads to maybe around 100ma charge current. I did not actually measure the current today though so it could be lower due to other factors.
Now that would seem like enough, but apparently either it's not enough (battery self discharge kicks in too) or it is actually lower than that due to other factors.
In any case, the voltage did not rise at all today, and although some current may be there it will not be enough to take it over the period of darkness tonight. Normally the voltage will rise and then when it gets dark the voltage falls gradually until about 6am when it is around 12.06 volts. If it starts out at 12.06 volts, then it will fall much lower by tomorrow morning.

So to find out about what you are suggesting i'd have to measure some current levels, but im not sure if it matters. If the voltage during a cloudy period does not rise as much as during a sunny period, then it's not enough.

The only thing i dont know yet is will the voltage even hold at 12.06v or will it rise to 12.07v or fall to 12.05v before complete darkness.

[MrAl]

Constantly checking the battery voltage due to some problems in the past and now that i have a solar panel connected i am keeping a very close eye on the battery voltage.
The past few days have been pretty sunny out so the voltage was holding up. It's not great though i can say that much for sure.
Now today will be the first day with a lot of cloud cover so i'll see how well it does with mostly cloudy days. I dont expect it to do too well but we'll see i guess. I also expect that going to a larger panel wont help that much either on cloudy days. That's a shame because if we get two cloudy days in a row it will probably be almost as if i had no panel at all. Maybe in the summer months it will do better though.

Most people,overestimate the loss of solar output due to clouds. It’s roughly 20-25% loss, ie, a 400 watt panel will output 300 Watts in clouds. Temperature is another factor so that works in our favour in climate states; higher temperatures kill solar panel efficiency

There is an interesting effect that in wispy light cloud cover, solar output INCREASES . I hang out with smart people so my brain was able to figure this out. Hint. It is a cousin to the reason the sky is blue

Hello again Steve,

Well, i have some numbers now for a cloudy day, or at least one half of a cloudy day (ha ha).
First, the voltage during a sunny period typically rises to around 12.35 volts which is pretty good i think, but today with the clouds, it did not rise at all, at least not yet. It remains at the early morning initial voltage of 12.06 volts.

This leads me to believe that whoever quoted that small loss of power of 20 to 25 percent is someone in the business of selling solar panels (ha ha). It seems just completely impossible because measurements of the insulation levels for a sunny day is much higher than for a cloudy day. For a sunny day around here it can reach up to 650 w/m^2 (yesterday) but today it is just around 65 w/m^2, so that indicates a power output of just 10 percent, not down by 10 percent, but just 10 percent. That makes a 20 watt panel look like 2 watts, but unfortunately it's even less due to the reduced insolation in this area anyway even on a sunny day.
Note that some places that sell solar panels will quote 10 to 15 percent DOWN so a 300 watt solar panel may be able to put out 270 watts on a cloudy day. All i can say to that is, "Ha !". They want people to buy their panels.

I may set up a separate solar cell to measure the insolation levels minute by minute. When i worked with Sandia Labs (New Mexico) back in the 1980's they insisted on doing it that way even though we designed dynamic max power tracker circuits. They said it was more stable that way. What used to happen was when a cloud would roll by the converters would shut down for a minute, then start back up.

So the bottom line is this may not work very well, which in turn means some days i will just have to start the car. The good news is i should have to start it less than before. I feel that going 3 days should be good enough so i'll see what happens over the next day. Tomorrow is supposed to be sunny again.

[foggydogg]

The T5’s previous owner kept decent service records and had an envelope with receipts, one of which shows the timing belt was replaced 10 years and almost 50,000 miles ago. Should I think about redoing the TB/WP or figure it’s still good to go?

Ooof, that’s bad, Bruno. Hard to start, I bet.

I’m hoping that was the cause of the crank, no-starts and the misfire codes. So far, so good!

Plus one on the belt, Robert uses ten years as his benchmark as well. He only replaces the water pump every second belt job on his fleet - I think his Driver has north of 450k on it now.
Take a hard look at the repair ticket, make sure the tensioner and roller were quality parts back then.

[bmdubya1198]

Plus one on the belt, Robert uses ten years as his benchmark as well. He only replaces the water pump every second belt job on his fleet - I think his Driver has north of 450k on it now.
Take a hard look at the repair ticket, make sure the tensioner and roller were quality parts back then.

Yup, this is the most important thing. Low quality pulleys will be the biggest problem.

I agree on the water pump interval. These OE pumps have proven to have a very long life.

[scot850]

Volvo recommended a water-pump for every 2 belts changed on my P80's.

Al, if your battery is draining that fast is may be you have a parasitic drain greater than 10-20 mA. I would suggest checking that. You are an electrical wizz, so you know to close all doors on the car, and then disconnect the -ve lead and then see what drain you get between the -ve battery post and the ground/ -ve cable.

I suspect yours may be running higher than the 10-20mA. To me a good battery is one at 12.5-6V. On a 98 they are less finicky on starting with a lower charge, the 99- don't like low batteries. I think I read they won't start at less than 10.9V which you can ready when the starter is turning even on a good battery.

Neil.

[MoVolvos]

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Does P0600 always = ABS Module?

viewtopic.php?p=619476#p619476

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[MrAl]

Volvo recommended a water-pump for every 2 belts changed on my P80's.

Al, if your battery is draining that fast is may be you have a parasitic drain greater than 10-20 mA. I would suggest checking that. You are an electrical wizz, so you know to close all doors on the car, and then disconnect the -ve lead and then see what drain you get between the -ve battery post and the ground/ -ve cable.

I suspect yours may be running higher than the 10-20mA. To me a good battery is one at 12.5-6V. On a 98 they are less finicky on starting with a lower charge, the 99- don't like low batteries. I think I read they won't start at less than 10.9V which you can ready when the starter is turning even on a good battery.

Neil.

Hi Neil,

Oh that's interesting about the water pump. I was wondering about that as i read that was a standard replacement issue when the timing belt is changed.

As to the parasitic drain, yeah maybe that's the whole problem. I think i may have figured out a way to test that without actually disconnecting the battery or buying a new clamp on meter. If i connect up BEFORE i 'break' the connection, then the connection will never be completely broken, and i should get a meaningful reading.

I did measure the cloudy day charge current yesterday. I had to go out so unfortunately i wont know the 'next day morning' battery voltage after a full day of cloud cover because of course that meant the car engine had to be started.
What i measured was 7.8 milliamps.

The problem with that low of a current, even if it does hold the battery up to a given voltage, is that during the night it will drop. If it drops to 12.06v as usual and the charge current holds it at 12.06v for the entire day, then the next morning it will be even lower, and the morning after that even lower yet, until i either start the car or get a nice sunny day again. The good news is that this is really the last month of winter so as summer comes i should see some better results.
One thing is for sure though and that is the solar panel does help, just not as much as i would like. It seems for most days it will keep the battery charged. Just for the record, the panel is rated at 20 watts and the size is about 12 inches by 13 inches. That rating does check out with the size of the panel and the expected efficiency of a monocrystalline solar panel and the theoretical 1000w/m^2, and i did verify it is really monocrystalline. I suppose i could invest it a bigger panel but as you said i should check out the engine off power current drain maybe something is wrong.
All that i know of right now that is running with the engine off is the clock, temperature, stuff like that on the dashboard panel, and of course the computer memory, and the radio little lamp that blinks on and off. My little microcontroller/transmitter telemetry circuit only draws about 1ma average.

[scot850]

There is also a small amount of power to the radio to keep the channel information.

If you have a larger current loss, 2 of the more common issues are the glove box light not switching off (easily checked with a cell phone inside in video mode), or the tailgate area having a short in the harness from the car to the tailgate in the LH hinge area.

Neil.

[MrAl]

There is also a small amount of power to the radio to keep the channel information.

If you have a larger current loss, 2 of the more common issues are the glove box light not switching off (easily checked with a cell phone inside in video mode), or the tailgate area having a short in the harness from the car to the tailgate in the LH hinge area.

Neil.

Hi,

Oh you mean the wiring for the lock mechanism or something?

I found a way to measure the current draw but it will take a couple days. Actually, two different ways.

One is to use a metal hose clamp around the battery terminal connector, and then drill a tiny hole in the top of the post of the battery (negative post) and screw in a small screw where you can screw down the other wire to measure current. That way it is more unlikely that any connection will come loose while disconnecting the ground connector. The meter then takes the place of the battery lead.
I have some issues with connecting to the OBDII connector. Mainly, how to match the voltage exactly to the battery voltage. If the voltages are not matched, it will try to either drain current through the OBDII wires or source current, so that could be higher current then we want.
That's because you cant disconnect the battery first.

I found a major problem but im going to start a new thread for this.

[brunocerous]

I found coolant weeping from Blue Steel’s lower radiator hose. I tried changing the worm-drive hose clamp with a new one, which slowed it, but there’s still a slight leak. I wonder if the replacement Nissens rad has a crack at the lower hose port.