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philo

On 01/17/2018 06:22 PM, wrote:
On Wed, 17 Jan 2018 17:48:13 -0600, philo wrote:

On 1/17/2018 4:32 PM, Andy wrote:

I was an industrial battery service engineer and any battery used inside
your house should be VRLA. Valve regulated lead acid, for safety
reasons. A standard car battery emits hydrogen and could be explosive.

As far as using a battery larger than what the unit was designed for,
you can do that...I do it myself. Just check the voltage periodically as
it should "float" somewhere around 13.5 volts.

If it ever drops to 12.7 or below, you will need to use an external
charger to boost it.

Is there any significant difference in the charging of a regular deep
cycle battery and a gel cell like they use in a UPS? I am not sure I
would want to use a regular starting battery since they do not like
being severely discharged.

The automotive maintenance-free batteries, instead of being
lead-antimony are lead-calcium.

The lead-calcium battery uses much less water when being charged, but
the trade off is they cannot be deeply discharged very often.

Ten deep discharges could kill one.

The deep cycle batteries are good for use in golf-carts and trolling
motors for boats. They produce a fail amount of hydrogen and would not
be a good idea to use inside one's house.

A gel cell requires very low current as it approaches full charge ,
quite a bit lower than a deep-cycle battery.