I posted a response to this person's question in the power forum on Gary North's system but since it comes up a lot I thought I'd repost it here.....DCK

Q: I live in a small condo. I'd like to set up a small battery plant for powering lights, my computer, stereo, and small appliances occasionally. I'd like to go solar because of space and noise. I don't have room for an outdoor battery storage area. What do people suggest for this situation. I don't want the hazards of opened bateries ETC. Are gel cells useful? Could I expect to recharge my bateries with solar power?

: Thanks : Rusty

Hi Rusty...Got your email but will respond here so anyone else interested can follow up...

I don't see a problem with using flooded lead acid batts here which is your best bang for the $...let me explain...

The funky "schmaze" that tends to accumulate on top of normal flooded lead acid batts can be almost entirely eliminated by installing Hydrocaps in place of the original battery caps. Hydrocaps are bigger and contain a platinum catlyst which causes the hydrogen gas trying to leave the batteries to recombine with oxygen in the air, convert back to water and drip back into the battery. This also minimizes any acid trying to escape and take up residence on your terminals and batts, hence battery and terminal cleaning is reduced (or can be) to a once a year chore. This keeps the battery much cleaner, cuts water usage by around 80%, and eliminates most of the hydrogen gas hazard. I'd reccomend 2 or more golf cart batts with hydrocaps, placed in a rubbermaid or similar plastic tub which also protects the batt terminals from misc. stuff falling on them and shorting them out. You should still vent the plastic tub outside but that's not difficult..my friend uses a small 12 volt CPU fan (uses about a watt of power) plumbed via a piece of tygon plastic tubing to a vent under his eves (batts in box are in his garage). Since he lives in a cold locale he packed peralite around the batts in the tub to insulate them some and has the plastic tub sitting on a piece of cellotex insulating board. He made a couple small holes (1/4") about halfway up the side of the tub to admitt air and vents thru the cover of the box (hydrogen wants to rise being lighter than air). Makes for a nice little package thats safe and stores a fair amount of power.

FYI....with the above set-up battery cleaning should be minimal but a word to the wise....do NOT use "baking soda" to clean your batteries, water, paper towels and elbow grease should suffice. Sure keep some baking soda around in case you knock over a batt and spill the acid (1 lb. of baking soda is required to neutralize a quart of battery acid (as I recall there are 4 quarts in a golf cart batt and 9 quarts in an L16).

It is of course possible to charge using solar assuming you get enough sunlight and have decent solar access. I've been doing it for years and there are an estimated 180,000 independently powered homes in north america of which 40-50% (or so I'm told) use solar to one degree or another. Of course hydro and wind power are solar manifestations so the percentage could be higher.

Hope that helps....DCK, KE6QHP, Home Power Magazine

-- Don Kulha (dkulha@vom.com), August 12, 1999