Evening All,
               We have 2 x 12v "truck" batteries connected together then connected to an inverter which we charge off a genny/battery charger daily ,after a few hours of charge I let them rest for an hour or so then test the charge with a voltmeter thingy(2 pos/neg spikes) - if it tells me 12.7 or so I'm happy. Is this the wrong way to do things - should I leave them on the genny for longer-let them rest for longer - what should a full charge read.
                                           Ta,
                                               Briand.

Hi Briand

  Its OK I am not stalking your posts. I have a bad back and spend most of the early hours reading the morning papers/Forums on my puter if the old bones are playing up. I found this site which is a little old but it must have taken the guy 2 years to type. I only read about 4 lines and my eyes glazed over but it may help re "Resting" batteries and other useful errrrr things I think.  :-/ :-/ ::)

http://www.phrannie.org/battery.html

More light reading re inverters below.  ;D

http://www.phrannie.org/invert.html

Have you tried stamp collecting

And if your interest is waked up, here is the paper that tells you everything there is to know:

http://www.victronenergy.com/upload/documents/ElectricityonBoard_rev8_july2004.pdf

Good luck,
Mark

avalidopinion, I was starting to worry if you had a late night thing for Irishmen !!! Noticed the times on lots of your posts - will read this and try to pick the bones out of it, all info gratefully recieved - hope the back gets better - I'll get my Mum & Dad (both reiki masters) to send you a bit of mumbo jumbo. Brian.

If you are genuinely using 'truck' batteries then they will quickly die as they dont do many 'cycles' ....the leisure batteries that caravan/boat people use are the type to get as they can stand an awful lot more discharges. A cheap substitute are electric truck batteries...the 'ride on' pallet truck items.
Also, Maplin do an excellent little solar set up for £200 that will drive this type of set up.....I used to use 3 x 120amp/hr batteries on one of these and during the day I ended up with close to 17v that dropped back to 14v  as they settled back.
http://www.maplin.co.uk/60w-solar-power-kit-223250
The little control box is very good and has a USB and a 'car style 12v plug' thats dead handy for phone chargers

Evening Folks,
                    Just had a very good chat with Nigel of prismsolar and have had an education on all things battery/inverter/charger/genny absolutely without any obligation Nigel advised on where I was going wrong and what to do to put it right.A gentleman whom I hope I will be sending some biz.