07-11-2016, 12:37 PM
At the moment, if you have the money, the best are lithium iron phophate batteries. They need no water, no equalization, have no gassing. They don't need to be completely charged everyday and are around 96% efficient. You can discharge to 10%-20% from empty capacity and are rated to last 10 years and still have 70% capacity left. If they last as rated then they are cheaper than lead acid.
You can use a regular Outback inverter and charge controller or similar. They are light weight, clean and much smaller than lead acid. They charge fast no long taper but full voltage/amps to end of charge. No voltage drop on high loads like microwave, pump, etc.
Mine finish charging by 1 pm and I take them down to 45% - 50% capacity at night. The lowest voltage my 48 volt system has reached is 51.9 volts, even under large loads, the highest 55 volts. The voltage is just constant.
Now the bad part, they cost a lot up front and they are hard to get here.
They are just boring not much maintainance to do. Did I really say I miss messing with acid, watering, equalizing, worrying about state of charge, monitoring house loads ? I think not.
You can use a regular Outback inverter and charge controller or similar. They are light weight, clean and much smaller than lead acid. They charge fast no long taper but full voltage/amps to end of charge. No voltage drop on high loads like microwave, pump, etc.
Mine finish charging by 1 pm and I take them down to 45% - 50% capacity at night. The lowest voltage my 48 volt system has reached is 51.9 volts, even under large loads, the highest 55 volts. The voltage is just constant.
Now the bad part, they cost a lot up front and they are hard to get here.
They are just boring not much maintainance to do. Did I really say I miss messing with acid, watering, equalizing, worrying about state of charge, monitoring house loads ? I think not.