[thingstodo]

2.4A is far below the 4A I expected to see and even further below the 8A I'd like to see. But I don't have an easy way to regulate the current. I could build a circuit, but that's a bit of a diversion. It looks like I won't be getting the batteries charged up and tested today. I need to get them out of the garage and put my car in there. We got 6 inches of snow last night and I'm not cleaning off the car all week before going to work.

39 A-h at 2.4A will take the better part of 12 hours, with the batteries gassing quite a bit toward the end. These batteries are about 15 years old, so they won't have the capacity they started with - but I don't know how that affects the length of time to charge, either. The voltage on the batteries does not rise as they near 'full', they just produce a lot more gas as the water boils off ... at least, that's what it looks like to me.

I'll leave it run for a few hours and make sure that the batteries are not swelling, that the current stays about where it is. I plan to use the batteries in banks of 11 (13.2V) to power the inverters, which will power my VFD. So I will have 6 strings of 11, 3s3p for each of my 2 DC to AC inverters. The next time I'm charging the bank, I won't have as many batteries to charge so the current will likely be higher. I can play around with that and perhaps get the input current for the inverter up to 40A. That should get the output to 140V and about 3.5 amps. I guess I won't make it up to 4A output unless the output voltage drops a bit.