On Wed, 27 Oct 2010 20:39:38 -0400, "Flying Pig"
wrote:

Hi, Gang,

Trying to insert info to either satisfy curiosiity or squelch criticsims
from the many barbs (and also to fill in blanks on the helpful ones) slung
at me along the way, here's how it all worked out:

I have an 880 AH house bank and a Group 27 marine deep-discharge starting
battery. They are connected to a Blue Sea switch. I have 4 total sources
of potential charging - Wind, Solar, 110A alternator and 70A inverter
charger (energized by shore power, very rarely at a dock, or through a Honda
eu2000i).

You should use a "starting" battery for your starting battery, not a
deep-cycle. A starting battery has many thin plates, allowing it to
deliver the very high currents required for starting, but making it
less tolerant of frequent deep discharges.

A deep-cycle battery has fewer thick plates which makes it much more
tolerant of deep discharge cycles, but, less able to deliver the large
currents required for starting.

--
Peter Bennett, VE7CEI
peterbb4 (at) interchange.ubc.ca
GPS and NMEA info: http://vancouver-webpages.com/peter
Vancouver Power Squadron: http://vancouver.powersquadron.ca