power budget

[Mike O'Dell]

so what kind of "deep discharge" battery is it?
a standard flooded cell "marine" deep discharge?
what size? 

The first rule of lead-acid batteries is *NEVER*
discharge them deeper than 50%. Of course there
is fine print surrounding that, but to one
significant figure, that's an ironclad rule
because aside from overcharging, nothing kills 
a lead-acid battery faster than repetitive 
deep discharges.

The second rule is don't waste money on a cheap
battery charger. Overcharging a lead-acid battery
will kill it extremely efficiently. Unless you just
like buying batteries, you want a real 3-stage charger
that does (1) bulk, (2) absorption, and (3) float stages.
Bulk puts most of the coulombs back in the battery, 
but since it ain't a capacitor and there are real,
physical chemical reactions that have to happen 
some parts happen s-l-o-w-l-y and absorption slows
down the charge rate so those can catch-up with 
the bulk charging. Then float mode keeps the
battery topped-up without over-charging.

	-mo