Jim Dunmyer wrote in a message to Roy J. Tellason:
 >JD> To drag this closer to on-topic, it might be an interesting 
 >JD> excercise to calculate how many solar panels or how large a 
 >JD> wind generator it might require to provide the power for one's 
 >JD> own vehicle at home.
 > 
 > Quite a bit more than many would expect,  I think.  Unless you're 
 > willing to wait quite a while for a vehicle to recharge.  I don't 
 > know what the charge times are on that warehouse stuff,  when a 
 JD> I've been around electric forklifts and it's my experience that 
 JD> they require about 8 hours to fully charge. Which is why they 
 JD> have 2 batteries for every machine if they're to be operated 2 
 JD> or more shifts/day.
 JD> It's also well-known amongst folks with their own home power 
 JD> system that PV panels can't be depended on to equalize the 
 JD> batteries. That is, all lead-acid batteries must be overcharged 
 JD> periodically or they will have very short lives; they might go 
 JD> a year or 2 if charged only with the solar panels/wind power, 
 JD> but will go 5-7 years if equalized every 2-4 weeks. This is 
 JD> typically done with a gas-powered generator to get the 5 hours 
 JD> of overcharge required. 
So how would I do that with these two deep cycle RV batteries I've got 
sitting here to make them last longer?
Mostly I've just been maintenance charging them,  every so often,  because 
they haven't really been loaded all that much (the RV needs some work :-), 
though one of them seems to be using an inordinate amount of water for some 
reason...
I salvaged some 13.8 volt 5 amp regulators a while back,  I probably oughta 
set some of those up for float charging these puppies.
email: roy.j.tellason%tanstaaf@frackit.com 
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