As I recover the diary files from the old site, I'll be posting them for educational purposes.
Way back in 2003, I decided to take the Shack off grid. Using a combination of Harbor Freight solar panels, a Xantrex charger and a small generator, I began learning about deep cycle batteries, solar energy, solar charger and generators.
Our first inverter and battery bank consisted of an old Xantrex powerpack 400 plus which was one of those things that has an air compressor, a flashlight, a 12 volt power outlet and an inverter and would jump a vehicle.
I discovered that you could also use the vehicle jumper ability to connect a battery bank to it. That was our first system. It was a kludged up system but it worked for several years until the inverter finally died.
From there, we moved up to an astounding 1,500 amp hour battery bank which wasn't very good. Batteries kept dying on us and at the end I wound up with one battery left - the only one I used a product called Battery Equaliser in. I still use it, 15 years later.
Now, in 2021, we use actual true deep cycle batteries, a mid grade inverter and one of the best generators on the market. You can read about it here.
