7 minutes ago, superdiy said:

Time to redo the frame of the panels. 

The frame of the panels stays..... That was a mission...... a friend with scoliosis of the spine came and helped and buggered up his back. If I told him I was redoing them I think the friendship would come to an abrupt end.

And you have to keep the welding rods dry.  Mine lies on top of my infini - before the infini they always lay on top of the APC UPS.

i got a magnum 2005 station and the 1002 iron, very nice Iron imo. but don't buy their PSU.

9 minutes ago, plonkster said:

Darn it guys... now you have me wondering whether I should buy a new welder or a new soldering station. Because I was sort of eyeing a nice Magnum soldering station until 5 minutes ago... and they sort of cost the same too :-)

Wonderful thing about this forum ..... shoot down your carefully researched plans and encourage compulsive buying of stuff you have not researched at all!

1 hour ago, superdiy said:

You don't have to be a good welder, you just need to know how to use a baby grinder and flapper discs. 

 

1 hour ago, plonkster said:

I have a transformer welder with a fan. It isn't significantly different to the oil-bath type. I found that the kind of rod I use makes a big difference. I used the builders-warehouse special for a while, and all the while I was thinking... man... I need more practice... I am SUCH a poor welder. Ran out of rods, went back to buy more... all they had was Afrox Vitemax. Expensive, but bought them anyway. What a difference!

So moral of that story: Either get a proper welder, or use better rods. Poor welder with cheap rods = frustration.

Edit: Mattweld. That was the brand I used before switching to Vitemax.

Yup, the good stuff is nice but expensive. 

The right tool could potentially turn anyone into a professional ...

Again back to the diode dilemma. lets not forget that the separation is in order to negate the primary problem which is charging of dissimilar batteries. and in charging I must say that dissimilar capacities is a problem, if you have 100ah and 50ah in parallel, the IR of the 50 should be more than the 100 right but what if its not, that is the real world problem. if the 100 is aged and has a similar IR to the 50 they will take charge at the same rate. so yes the result is either the 50 being overcharged spending too much time at absorption or the 100 being under charged which will then settle overnight discharging the 50 so now the 50 suffers as well. how much power is drawn from each in a discharge is not a problem imo, each will supply what it can. 

 

1 hour ago, Weasel said:

Again back to the diode dilemma. lets not forget that the separation is in order to negate the primary problem which is charging of dissimilar batteries. and in charging I must say that dissimilar capacities is a problem, if you have 100ah and 50ah in parallel, the IR of the 50 should be more than the 100 right but what if its not, that is the real world problem. if the 100 is aged and has a similar IR to the 50 they will take charge at the same rate. so yes the result is either the 50 being overcharged spending too much time at absorption or the 100 being under charged which will then settle overnight discharging the 50 so now the 50 suffers as well. how much power is drawn from each in a discharge is not a problem imo, each will supply what it can. 

 

but that's only true if they're charged from the same source. 

The proposal is to charge both banks separately. Sure, both banks will charge at different rates due the the reasons stated above. The diodes + separate chargers will solve the problem of over/under charging. 

1 hour ago, SilverNodashi said:

but that's only true if they're charged from the same source. 

The proposal is to charge both banks separately. Sure, both banks will charge at different rates due the the reasons stated above. The diodes + separate chargers will solve the problem of over/under charging. 

Yes exactly, I'm in agreement