Re: charger? (again) deep cycle batteries

"tg" wrote (in part):

with the help of some earlier replies (thanks) I've tested the deep
cycle
batteries I bought and they are impressive in performance, despite
being
used. I bought a charger and will start using/testing with that
tomorrow.I
do realise though that in the event of a prolonged power cut I'm going
to be
very red faced standing over three flat batteries. They are fine for a
short
period of power outage, say maybe a few days or a week, but after that
they
will need re-charging - which in the absence of mains power opens up a
whole
new can of worms.
I know of three ways to charge these 12v batteries without mains power:
1) solar panels (expensive)
2) wind turbine generator (expensive)
3) petrol driven generator (needs fuel, which will also be in short
supply).
---------------
Decent wind turbines are anything but cheap.A friend has
aan old, depression era, Jacobs unit that he paid several
K for. It works very well producing, I think 48V. It requires
routine maintinance and is a heavy monstor.

If Engalnd is as overcast as I have been lead to beleive
then solar is problamamtic. PVs arrays require direct
bright sun light to work.

Unless you are willing to learn a lot about electronincs and
machanincs I uspect you are going to have to buy most
of the stuff and intergrating various pieces of equiepment
will porve troublesome. From a pratical point I suspect
you are going to need to buy a near "turn key system".

For my emergency power I use gell cells, lead acid batteries
that have the acid bound in a gell forn, that I keep powered
from the normal mains. I have 2 gensets. One I bought mainly
for camping is a little 1.5KW unit that is very thrifty with fuel.
The other is a 6KW unit that is a lot thirstier. Both are
configured to operate from normal gasoline, and I have the
converter kits to allow operation from propane.

Before deciding to spend a botlaod of money, what are your
concerns.? How long do you expect to need to supply your own
power? Are you thinking about an "end of the world" event, or
short term power loss from storms? Looking at my situation,
and reviewing the AC for the last 25 years, I have to say
that our lights go out about 3 times a year. By "go out, I am
only counting those times when the lihgts are out for more then
a few seconds, like during a T-storm when a breaker on the grid
pops and takes at most 15 seconds to rest. If the lihgts are
out for more tehn 30 seconds then it will likely be about 90
minutes before they cme back on. This summer has been an
exception. The lights have already been out 4 times, and the
most recent, last night, lasted from 3:30AM until just after 9:00AM.
Had it been daylight, and if it was hot, I would have had to fire
the big boy up and keep the fridge and one windows AC unit
running. Since it was 70F, we went back to bed and slept
unitl the power was restored. Most of the time exteded power
outages are casused by ice storms in the winter and based
on the 3 times it has happened I could expect a minimum of
1 day, to a max of 5 days without power.

My wife and I are both have asthma and would have major
helath issues with an extended summer outage. I use the
gell cells to power my comm gear, SW receiver, scanner,
ham radios etc.

Before going much furhter, you really need to decide what
you want to power and for how long. From that data you
can develope a plan. My planing started April 3 1974 while
a college student still living with my parents. A series of
tornados came throgh and knokced out the lights for 73
hours. At the time all my comm gear operated from the
AC mains. During the next few days I decided that all of
my equipment had to operate from +12V as I could get
car batteries in a worst case. Within 6 months I had a
solid state SW receiver and I have stayed with that
fairly simple idea. Everything that I really need will operate
from +12V. If both my gensets died, I could fall back to
my 15HP law tractor and rig a car alternator to give me
+12V. Messy but workable.

If something like the New Madrid fault takes down the
power grid for weeks, or a societal collaspe takes it
down "forever" Life would get interesting. A quake would
be no fun but we could get through. If it is TEOTWAWKI,
then we would have to relocate, abandon our current home.
We have what if plans, and agreements with friends who
would find our technical skills usefull, but I have to say I
rate a real end of the world event as very unlikely.

So again I come back to what do you wnat to power, for how
long and why. For me being able to monitor the world around
me is as natural as breathing. I monitor the loacl LEO, FD
even the BGAD werhe nerve agent is slated for destruction.
But what do you want to do? Just keep a light on, keep a PC
or TV up or something more complicated.

I fire my gensets up every spring and fall. I test my primary and
backup gell cells once a year. I have a DVM that can send
data to a PC so I run each battery "down" to 11V with a 5A load
and record the run time. I have one standby cell that has lost
20% of it's capacity since the last test. If it gets any worse I will
remove it from service. I have 6 similar 12V 20Amp/Hr cell cells
that I test once a year on a staggered schedule. EVery other
month a battery gets tested. That way if the lihgts go out, I will
only have 1 discharged battery.

I also have several PV cells that produce 17V @~2Amps in bright
sunlight. On a good day I could opeate a SW reciver, a VHF/UHF
scanner keep one battery "topped" off, and recharge one flat battery.
But good solar days only happen around here about 1 in 3.

Sorry for the length of this response, but you asked a good simple
question that only has complex answers. Several years ago someone
posteed their power budget. I will dig around in the archives and see
if
I can find it. It would make a good starting point for planning.

And I am sorry for any real bad spelling or grammer mistakes.
While we went back to bed, I didn't sleep very well. We have
2 chinese elm trees that really need to come down. They are
large enough that I am concerned a real strong wnd will knock
them down. The tree doc says they are healthy and have another
20+ years of life, but he doesn't have to sleep "under" them.


Terry

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