Is there an in-depth tutorial on solar set up?

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Small Cabin Forum / Off-Grid Living / Is there an in-depth tutorial on solar set up?


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tedsomango Member	# Posted: 30 Mar 2011 08:32pm Reply Solar panels: http://cgi.ebay.com/SOLAR-PANEL-90-WATT-90W-12-VOLT-45W-x-2pcs-/310308064554?pt=LH_De faultDomain_0&hash=item483fcd4d2a or http://cgi.ebay.com/100-Watt-Solar-Panel-Module-10-year-warranty-2-x-50-w-/2507487093 34?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3a61c9a9d6 Are the panels i am going to go with, Is there a tutorial for someone that needs to know what to buy and how to set things up?? Panel - charge controller- Battery - Inverter - Power But what are the cords how do you know what to buy for the panel, how do you hook the battery to the inverter, what about if i have 2 batteries. The idea is there but i cant find clarification or a tutorial anywhere. My father is an electrical engineer, none of it rubbed off...

tedsomango Member	# Posted: 30 Mar 2011 08:35pm Reply http://greenenergiesllc.com/zencart/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=2&products _id=1&zenid=07ed68f5d6e8270587b45631a76df5ce charge controller?

tedsomango Member	# Posted: 30 Mar 2011 08:35pm Reply I am gonna go with 100 watts

tedsomango Member	# Posted: 30 Mar 2011 08:38pm Reply my usage will be for 4 hours at night i will power two led lamps, and during the day i will charge laptop. I will also at night periodically charge my Blackberry. To begin with i will have one deep cycle battery and hope to gain another.

tedsomango Member	# Posted: 30 Mar 2011 09:17pm Reply http://cgi.ebay.com/300W-inverter-DC-12V-AC-220V-solar-power-system-/390188798309?pt= LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item5ad9109165 can i hook a power strip up to this?? and operate this safely is 300w overkill?

MtnDon Member	# Posted: 30 Mar 2011 09:42pm Reply Quoting: tedsomango To begin with i will have one deep cycle battery and hope to gain another. Been there, done that. Trust me, two 6 volt golf cart batteries will outlast any 12 volt battery sold as a deep cycle / marine / RV battery. No real one source I can point to for learning. Lots of reading and research from many sources with a skeptical eye towards a lot of information on websites that also want to sell you merchandise. Arizona Wind-Sun has a great forum for PV and wind alternative energy. Don't jump into buying too fast. Quite often that leads to buying things all over again once you have it figured out. Seen that a few times. If you are thinking LED lamps I'd try to actually see how bright (or dim) they are before plopping down the money. Just my opinion; I haven't looked at them all but in general find them too focussed, too narrow a beam. Their time will come but I don't think they have matured yet. If your cabin is very small a Thinlite RV fluorescent might be a good bet. Run it off 12 VDC rather than the inverter.

CabinBuilder Admin	# Posted: 31 Mar 2011 10:54am Reply Quoting: MtnDon If you are thinking LED lamps I'd try to actually see how bright (or dim) they are Generally, LEDs loose their brightness with time, if used often. Different LEDs to various degree, but cheap ones go down really fast if running them constantly. I had a LED fish tank light - it went down ~ 50% in brightness in couple of months and in few months it was useless . Some newer ones suppose to be better...

MtnDon Member	# Posted: 31 Mar 2011 11:17am - Edited by: MtnDon Reply Quoting: tedsomango my usage will be for 4 hours at night i will power two led lamps, and during the day i will charge laptop. There is a device called a Kill-A-Watt. It is a meter, measures how much AC power something uses. I found that my laptop uses about 16 - 17 watts when fully charged and plugged into the AC. When I recharge the battery it is drawing about 39 -40 watts. That's about 2.5 times more power to recharge the laptop battery than if I run it off AC directly. So in some cases actual power consumed may be less if used off the AC source rather than the battery.

tedsomango Member	# Posted: 31 Mar 2011 01:41pm Reply MtnDon, That gives me a lot to think about.. The laptop juices a lot from the system. Makes me wonder if 85 watts is enough... If i was lucky i could pull 25 amps per day in the summer... My max usage that i have calculated would be (If I was being a power Glutton).. This is running off 12v calculating for 15% Battery 15% inverter losses Laptop 2 hr charge 8.82 ah 105.8 wh 2 CFL 13 wts a piece 4 hrs 11.46 ah 137.4 wh total 20.28 ah Its within my means to back it down to 1 light at a time, charge computer for 1 hr but this is illuminating. Solar is a tight ship..

MtnDon Member	# Posted: 31 Mar 2011 01:48pm Reply Yes it is. It is usually cheaper to grid connect. There are exceptions; to grid connect our cabin would have been about $55K. I put $8 to 9K into our solar. I have to admit to liking having our own power system, but am not sure what I would have if grid connecting was only $5K

tedsomango Member	# Posted: 31 Mar 2011 01:57pm Reply More of a Project for me! Also to be able to say that i make my own power is..Well..Powerful!! Its funny though, you look at the price and for just 80 more bucks you can get 10 more ahs, quite an addiction we have to power eh... If I go with the 85 I will be fine and I didn't have power before. I will be great full but there is allays that extra kick that i am looking for 120 watts!!! Pretty soon my beautiful little cabin in the woods is covered in solar panels and I am not going outside!!

Rob_O	# Posted: 31 Mar 2011 07:22pm Reply Quoting: tedsomango Its funny though, you look at the price and for just 80 more bucks you can get 10 more ahs, quite an addiction we have to power eh... I told you that was going to happen

Kithera Member	# Posted: 11 Apr 2011 02:39pm Reply The folks at otherpower.com specialize in this.

Carmichael Member	# Posted: 7 Feb 2012 01:39am Reply Wow, you have a lot of advise from people on your question, but may I suggest you do some serious diligence, the amount of pollution, fuel, chemicals it takes to produce 1 panel which will not last forever. No one mentioned the cost of the brackets and hardware to run these panels, and the fact is you need very good access to them to keep the surface spotless for optimal performance. Hope you are ready to do this as you age. One of your responses spent 9Gs on his panels. With that he still has useless power. For 9Gs you can buy a 3,000 gallon poly tank, fill it with heating oil (that is actually diesel without the road tax), buy a diesel generator and still have money left over. I bought a 1.0 liter diesel engine from the auto wrecker, hooked up 4-200 amp car alternators with charge relays from cars, and a massive AC generator that can be engaged when needed where the transmission was. At full tilt both AC and DC engaged I use up 1 cup of fuel in 3 hours. And have power, and I mean power with which I can do anything I please. No solar panel can even come close. If you do the math, my fuel in my tank will last 137 years (if I run it every day). with no additional expenses. Put that in your solar powered pipe and smoke it. Solar power panels are a gimmick, people think they are saving the environment and are going green, but they do not see what goes into making them, no thank, not for me. I like the fact that with a flick of a switch I can run a 60 amp plasma cutter thru 1 inch steel in the boonies.

MtnDon Member	# Posted: 7 Feb 2012 10:49am Reply Quoting: Carmichael With that he still has useless power. Useless? Something is only useless if it will not do the job asked of it. My system does everything I ask of it. So I don't see it as being useless. I would like to have a mini hydro system but I have no suitable water source; have lots of sun though. I did not build the solar system to be green and have never made that claim. I built it to have electricity without paying the power company $55K for a grid tie connection. If I could have been grid tied for something like $4K I think I would have gone in that direction. I happen to have a dislike for generators that have to be run a lot. My personal little bit of strangeness, if you will. That's my view, my opinion and anyone can agree or disagree. It doesn't make anyone right or wrong, just different.

analogmanca Member	# Posted: 7 Feb 2012 01:22pm Reply Carmichael Interesting, If I do A little math your 4x200 amp car alternators fully loaded would place you at 10,000 watts Dc. A 60 amp plasma cutter ( assuming you mean primary draw) would add (240 x60) 14,000 watts to that, ofcourse you will also need a air compressor to run your plasma, perhaps we are getting near 28,000-30,000 watts in total. A suitable Diesel engine would need to be in the range of 50 to 60 HP. Assuming the lower minium value of 50 HP, I am not aware of a one liter engine capable of that, perhaps over driven, and beltching black smoke a one liter could make that, but I cant imagine it would run for long. From memory one of the better fuel effecient diesels in the small car/engine class was the 1 liter ( I think 40 HP engine) in the Smart for two car. I believe it would consume fully loaded a little under a gallon of fuel per hour. I am very curious as to what engine you used? Did you modify it in some way? What rpms Do you run it at? As you say at full tilt with both ac, and dc engaged (assuming you mean loaded) you are able to run the 50HP? engine for 3 hours on 1 cup of fuel. I need to know how big your cup is? Is it one of those joke oversized cups that have "I bet you cant drink this" on the side, and holds maybe three gallons? I ask as I do not know of a diesel engine in the multi HP catagory that could even idle for 1 hr on a typical cup amount of fuel, let alone run fully loaded for 3 hours. I want a engine capable of such performance!

wakeslayer Member	# Posted: 7 Feb 2012 02:13pm Reply I am assuming it is extraordinarily peaceful whilst running said generator. How does the production of 3000 gallons of diesel fuel compare to the production of of a couple solar panels? Sorry, ONE solar panel... ? Or the poly tank, or the uber-powerful 1l engine?

Carmichael Member	# Posted: 7 Feb 2012 05:45pm Reply You are partly right, sorry I did'nt finish it got late. The one with the alternators is where they are connected to the front of the engine with a J style pulley. This allows to disconect the alternators at will. Only reason there are 4 off them is to open the gates of the deep cycle batteries and allow a charge to take full affect. If a trinkle charge is applied to deep cycle only all the time the batteries develope a memory and hold less and less of an charge. All deep cycle chargers have this feature unless of coarse they are made in Taiwan. Once the gates are opened the alternators that are not needed are disengaged to allow a 30 amp charge. At the rear of the engine is a 30 amp AC generator that can be engaged at will. This allows to use both currents at the same time. Since there is a loss during conversion of DC to AC it is a more efficient way of doing it. This allows 2- 15 amp 120v plugs and 1-20 amp 240v for washing machine and what ever. A 30 amp generator needs a 6 hp gasoline or a 4 hp diesel engine to operate. The load on the engine is almost nothing and it is running at less than 25%, and consumed 50 ml of light crude in 1 hour x 3 hours is 3/4 of a cup. I gave it extra since nothing is ever perfect or 1 cup for every 3 hours. The other unit I am building is for the plasma cutter and other equipment, It will require the full power of the motor I agree, but it will be used once in a while, which is still cheaper than driving to a town and get a machine shop the make a shaft or what ever can break in the bush. As for noise when its ON people ask me when am I going to turn it on. That tells you how quiet it is. As per comment of wakeslayer, I guess you need to do a little research and actually see on how solar panel is made. The poly tank is a byproduct of making fuel from raw crude, light crude which is diesel is a waste product of raw crude during the manufacturing of gasoline. I have a scrubber on my exhaust and produce almost no pollution, may I ask what chemicals you use to clean your glass of your solar panels? What is going to happen to them, where will they go after they are no good? What about the 1,000's of gallons of fuel to deliver all the raw materials to the plant and to bring that panel to you? It is not a perfect World if my footprint for power over the next 100 years will be the burning of 3,000 of crude I can stand proud with my head up high. Can you???? By the way, with the deep cycle batteries the generator needs to run only once a week, my mistake 400 years. Next thing youl'll try and say that electric cars produce no CO, I guess the power plants to produce that power do no enviroment damage.

MtnDon Member	# Posted: 7 Feb 2012 06:20pm - Edited by: MtnDon Reply Quoting: Carmichael batteries develope a memory I do not believe that statement about lead acid batteries, deep cycle or not, developing a memory. It flies in the face of every piece of information I have read on the matter, from alternative power vendors and battery manufacturers. A Google search for "do deep cycle lead acid batteries have memory" will bring up a host of sites with information. Lead acid batteries don't like a number of things. The closest I can think to "memory" issues would be that flooded lead acid batteries do not like to be only discharged lightly, as in a low discharge of something like 10% of capacity with a subsequent low amperage recharge, on a repeated basis. The issue then becomes one of stratification of the battery acid. Not the same as memory, but still not good for the battery's ability to produce it's rated power. Automobile batteries do not suffer from stratification as their electrolyte is mixed as you drive. Rather than deeply discharge the batteries as you would with NiCads to prevent the memory issue (which is a valid concern with their chemistry), and then recharge, the flooded lead acid battery responds best to an occasional equalization charge (elevated voltage, not elevated amperage). That is not something easily done with a alternator charging system. Links Wind-Sun scroll down to near the bottom Trojan Battery just past middle of the page Optima Scroll down to the section just above the topic "Storage". Show me a link that states lead acid batteries have a memory please.

MtnDon Member	# Posted: 7 Feb 2012 06:28pm - Edited by: MtnDon Reply Oh, the chemical I use to clean my PV modules is H2O. It comes in the form of precipitation. The computer data recording does not seem to be able to discern any differences that matter to the system operation, between freshly washed and not washed. It is less of a factor unless it never rains and the location an exceptionally dusty one. . Logs from the first month look pretty much the same as the logs from the latest moths. Data considered includes the recording of solar radiation in watts / m*m, as recorded by the NAWS station nearby and my own recording system.

analogmanca Member	# Posted: 8 Feb 2012 12:43am - Edited by: analogmanca Reply Carmichael Ok, I guess I missunderstood, you will/do have a separate engine for your plasma cutter, and heavy equipment, your alternators are shut off after the gates open, ok I get it, but now with what your saying with your second post on this engine subject you have disturbed my equilibium again, its not that things dont make sense to me, that is not surprising, its that things dont make sense by orders of magnitude, and go greatly against my personal experience. I will try to explain, and perhaps you can fill in information that will help me understand better. It just so happens that I have run a diesel engine at 4 hp (I think 3.5 to 3.9 hp) It was a 6hp water cooled listeroid driving a 1800 rpm ST style alternator. Now I was trying to see what type of fuel economy( not full power) I could get from this unit. I found that running this engine at a rpm of 400-450 rpm (cant remember for certain as it was a few years ago, and my memory is dissappearing much like my hair) I loaded The alternator up with a lap top, tv, all my main floor lighting, a fridge,and freezer. It sounds like a lot but only 600 or so watts steady state with surges when a compressor kicks on. For fun lets say 900 watts. At the time I ran the house for three days 24/7 The tank held 8 liters of diesel. At 17 hrs I refueld this engine. Each time I looked into the tank before refueling, and seen that there was only a little left, so I roughly learned from this that at light loading, with engine rpm lowered from its full horsepower rating of 6 to maybe 3.8 or so at 425 rpm I used roughly 500ml of fuel. I considered that to be very good. You see why I dont understand your data, It doesnt just disagree with my ball park experience, but it disagrees by a huge amount, ten times. Ten whole times! 1000% I either have a horribile engine, a horribile alternator or you are doing something you have not mentioned that could explain why you are using 50ml, and I am using 500ml of diesel!! We need to nail down all the variables, your elevation,my elevation, your exact fuel type, my fuel type, engine RPMS, engines, alternator types, and rpms, measuring equipment used ,and anything else you can think of. If I can get my fuel consumption to the level you have I would be very happy.

Carmichael Member	# Posted: 8 Feb 2012 01:38pm Reply Analomanca: Thank to your responce, I see you are doing perty good and are working on reducing your consumption, which is always good. I see that we could make good pen pals in this area and do not mind exchanging schematics and drawings and yes there are a few things up my sleeve, with you. I'm leaving for a few weeks and conact you when I get back.

Carmichael Member	# Posted: 8 Feb 2012 02:37pm Reply MtnDon: Wow, I didn't realize you were so well informed. Must be all the studing you have done on CRAP-NET, after all everything on this wonder of information hwy is true. YEH RIGHT, that's why the economy is collapsing World wide. I am not going to educate you nor brag my degrees to you, I have worked in my dad's aero industry machine shop since I was 10. I until recently was also a part owner of Battery World. I decided that I just could not take any more crap and got sick and tired of trying to convince people to buy $600 chargers rather than Taiwan crap. And I got sick of day after day shocking batteries to try and and realign them after they had spend their lives on trickle charges. By the way the correct term is battery maintance, not trickl charge. Maybe perhaps Schumacker the leading manufacturer to the industry needs to be reeducated by you also. Why is it that any setting on their charger be it 10amp or 30amp starts the charge at 200amps until the internal mechanics detects a switch over to a 10 amp or 30 amp? Now I am not going to publish for you on this site a thesis on what actually happens inside a battery while it charges. After all you have your crap-net degree hanging on the wall above your frappe-mocha machine. The solar market in this World is collapsing, there aren't enough suckers left to meet a viable industry. There is only a handful of manufacturere left, from these; Companies buy the panels and stick their names on them. The biggest solar manufacturer in Europe has done no research into solar panels for years and they are involved in molten salt/solar systems now. The next biggest thing that will change the world make nuclear power absolete and when it comes on line then electric cars will truly be green (at least while been driven). Now I am not sure what this stuff you wash your panels with is, something called water???? Unless you live way, way up north in the Tundra, your water that falls out of the sky is I'm sorry not water. In fact there is no place in the US that this is happening. The rain is a soup of chemicals and smog, the only way to clean it from the glass surface is with an acid, there is actually a company that sells pull-off films that can be applied to the glass saving time in cleaning them. I have washed enought panels that I do get nigthmares from them. Now if your solar panels are not mounted on an automatic array, then you get full potential of the sun for 2 hours per day providing it is sunny at that time and have set them up at the precise angle. There is only one manufacturer in the World for these automatic arrays and it costs more than all your panels are worth, so I don't believe you have one. So How did I get here, well surprisingly I was searching for a genius that wrote a book I saw in the Orient-Humanure. This web site popped up as one of the sources. I read a few of these forum letters and just could not bit my teeth anymore. I decided to write to "tedsomango" just to let him know that this is not the sound and best place to sink his money, and used you as a comparison noting how diligently you pointed out on how much you spent on your panels and as being the all mighty expert and advisor to the fact. Frankly, I could not find a shovel big enough for this and decided to advise him that real diligence is the course of action in this matter. Now maybe you need to make yourself a real cup of coffee screw the frappe-mocha and examine THIS WEB site. If you notice 85% of all questions are in regards to confusion on solar, batteries, chargers, and need to understand how to apply and hook up panels. Wow can you imagine a manufacturer producing a product where it is "buyer figure it out", it's like buying a car with no keys and asking the buyer to figure it out on their own how to start it. The rest of the questions are about fridges and then crappers and water, only 1% is interisting read about people enjoying the outdoors. This reminds me of my father in-law, I purchased a Honda outboard motor, he told me it was a piece of crap. He said he can go to any cranny lake marina and buy parts for his Merc, just try to do that with the Honda. After waching him explode and finally calming down I asked him if it is perhaps that all these marinas have replacement parts for Mercs because they break down all the time since they are a piece of crap? The conversation ended and I haven't heard any mention of it since. Anyway; the next thing you need to do is go on crap-net and punch up: solar sucks, solar bad investment, solar problems etc. I did before I logged on to here, one site alone has 136,000 listings WOW!! Why? The fact to the matter is people that have invested large moneys into this will not divulge the truth, since they them selves will not face the fact OK it wasn't the best investment made. Tidal power, solar power, wind power all need something that this World cannot provide constantly to produce power. Water power is truly the only one, but not everyone has a yearround stream flowing thru their property. Bang for Bang, the least overall (including manufacturing) product with the least footprint to the enviroment is a good generators fueled by old diesel or wood hooked up to US or Canadian made golf cart batteries. Enjoy your life, and the illusion you live in, I got my book and when I go to sleep every night my conscious does not keep me awake.

MtnDon Member	# Posted: 8 Feb 2012 04:19pm - Edited by: MtnDon Reply Carmichael, you are making assumptions; that to me that shows you are not as smart as you think you are. Yet we do agree on some things. Most of what I know about solar and batteries came from working with a friend who has now something like 24 years experience living off grid, first on boats and then on land. Not just a guy who tinkers with his own stuff but an electrical engineer who has left big industry and who now sells and maintains PV systems. Oh, and I did not get my degree from the internet; I spent years in school/university. I don't drink designer coffee; I drink real coffee, straight and black is my choice. That was a cheap and small minded shot, IMO, bigoted stereotypical thinking. BUT, even if I did enjoy a morning cappuccino and afternoon espressos, what the heck does that have to do with anything else? Being sarcastic or making fun of people when you are ignorant of the relevant facts, you simply make yourself out to be the fool, not the other person. I use links to internet sites as they are handier than typing everything. For certain there is a lot of misinformation on the internet; anyone who believes everything they see is making a mistake. Most people who have problems with their batteries are folks who in one way or another abuse their batteries with poor practices or ill suited equipment. I think we agree on that. Most of the problems people have stem from incorrectly sizing the battery bank and/or the charging capacity they have. They ultimately withdraw more from the batteries than they should on a regular basis. Same issue many people have with bank accounts and credit. Batteries don't offer credit. The statement I made about putting $8K or so into a PV system was made to show that I saw that preferable to spending $55K on a grid tie set up. If one can grid tie for $5K, more or less, that is often a better deal. Trying to build a cheap satisfactory PV system is frequently an exercise in frustration with a resulting unsatisfactory system. That was the sole point. That was not bragging. Just like many politicians, you have cherry picked a phrase to try to reinforce your point of view and criticize others. BTW, you first used the term "trickle" charge. I did not. I prefer float as the descriptive word for maintenance charging. From what I've seen on my own and from what I've learned from my experienced PV friend, more people who rely on generators for recharging run into more problems with their batteries than those with a properly sized PV system. They discharge their batteries too deeply before re-charging. That's a common fault no matter how the batteries are recharged. They don't have a charger that can supply enough current to get the job done quickly enough to "stir up the electrolyte". Some rely on a too small PV array and are trusting that after a weekend of heavy drain on the batteries the batteries will slowly recharge over the next week. You and I both know that is not the way to make batteries last as long as they can. The golf cart batteries (4) in our RV were 6 years old and doing fine when we sold it off. That did not come about by accident. No, I do not have a tracking device on my PV modules. I never claimed I did. In theory it would be nice to be able to squeeze more watts out of the modules for more hours. My friend used install trackers with every system he installed. As you stated the trackers now cost more than another module. It no longer makes economic sense to buy trackers. I'm not sure what your point was about raising that, but it doesn't matter a the way I see it. Our PV modules are adjustable for position though and that is changed several times a year with a simple manual adjustment that needs no tools or ladders. For me, and many others, there is another reason a generator as primary battery recharging is impractical. That's because our cabin, like many, is not occupied full time. In winter weeks can go by without our being there. It is snowed in; snow shoes are the method of access. Snowmobiles could also be used but I don't like most because of their noise and smoky exhaust, much like I don't like most generators. We both know that lead acid batteries sitting there for weeks, possibly a month on their own, with no maintenance charge, is a recipe for disaster. I could have an autostart system for a generator but then I'd be worrying about the mechanicals being dependable enough. I seem to have better luck with high quality electronics running dependably long term than I do with mechanicals. Maybe that is just me. As for using a commodity traded fuel as a primary energy choice to me that faces too uncertain a future with pricing as volatile as it is. Oil is going to get more and more costly. Hopefully the world will figure out a way to get along without it being as plentiful and as cheap as in the past. It is good to know that there are new solar methods and systems being developed. In the interim we have to do with what we have. Much like the change from incandescent, to CFL to LED. To see new technology in widespread use at affordable pricing takes time. We agree on some things I think and disagree on others. Sort of typical for the way the world works.

wakeslayer Member	# Posted: 9 Feb 2012 10:07am Reply Carmichael, Any particular reason you are so abrasive? You have been around for a week here. I cannot figure out your motivation for being that way. This is a friendly site where people discuss their ideas, lives, plans, dreams, etc. Sure there are technical aspects that we can always use a knowledgeable person to help guide through. But, geezuss, dude. Lighten up. Throttle the personality back a little bit and be a member. Not some knowitall blowhard who bashes peoples every word. People like you get banned from forums everyday for that crap. While I can appreciate that you have a wealth of knowledge, frankly, I am not interested whatsoever, if your way is the only means of delivery. Try being pleasant...

TomChum Member	# Posted: 9 Feb 2012 10:52am - Edited by: TomChum Reply Well, I have to say this thread was very useful. I thought it was just going to be ramblings, which I would read just to convince myself how sane I am. Then I worried MtnDon would get disgusted and quit the forum. I was happy to find some little jewels, most that come out of MtnDon but some from Carmichael too. -Relying upon a Generator only will likely result in repeated deep discharges for various reasons (hassle, noise, fuel, mechanical, neglect) -If you have a small solar array, run a generator to stir up / bubble the electrolyte from time to time. -forget solar tracking at this point. Adding panels is cheaper and more reliable than a mechanism. -for all I spent on my cellphone boosters I can conclude that I might be part owner of Wilson Electronics Quoting: Carmichael I got my book and when I go to sleep every night my conscious does not keep me awake. Carmichael sure pays attention to a lot of stuff. Eyes wide open is a good way to be, and everyone should should slap themselves upside the head once in awhile to make sure they are not sleeping thru life. But I'm concerned that in the middle of a deep sleep he sleep-walks over to the keyboard and starts typing on small-cabin.com..........well anyway I've been enjoying my books too and my conscious hasn't kept me awake either!

MtnDon Member	# Posted: 10 Feb 2012 10:45am Reply I want to explain a little further, why I was concerned about the use of the term "memory" with lead acid batteries. Many people when they hear the words :mempry" and "battery" together will remember all the warnings we have received over the years about Nicad battery memory. Many of those people will also remember that the cure for NiCad battery memory is to completely discharge the NiCad and recharge, rather than recharge the NiCad when it is only partially discharged. If you follow that practice with lead acid batteries you will be harming the lead acid battery, not helping it. You may think that nobody would be so foolish as to intentionally deeply discharging their lead acid battery because of memory effect. Wrong. I've been asked by people if they should do that, and told by others that they do it every-so-often. As I pointed out there are problems with only lowly discharging lead acid batteries, the electrolyte stratifies. That can lead to lessened performance of a lead acid battery. But it is not the same as a memory effect. An equalization charge will correct that. A similar problem but a very different solution.