Now that I have my inverter sort of set up the way I want (just not powering everything I want it to yet) I embarked upon some battery maintenance. The consensus is that the voltage of each battery should be with in tenths of a volt between each cell in the string. I have 4 in my string. With the old batteries I got when I purchased the inverter I don't know how old they are or how much they've been abused. I topped up to the recommended level with distilled water and measured. I wasn't with in a few tenths of a volt I was almost a volt off on some of them
Ok, time for an equalization charge. Look at the instructions.. looks simple enough, turn the little knob to equalize and away we go right? wrong. the voltage didn't change at all! argh I have a defective inverter.
I chopped the incoming A/C to the inverter and forced it to run off the batteries. Turn the power back on and now I hear a heavy duty hum coming from the inverter and the 26-something volt float voltage is now 33volts! yahoo.. the batteries start bubbling and I let it run (had the window open) when I came back down the next day the inverter was back to normal voltage so I turned it back to normal.
Measured the voltage between the batteries and they were all within 1/10 of a volt of each other. Good news...
So I'm guessing if you have a decent inverter that has that option it may not be necessary to run a pulsing desuplhator. But if you have a lame battery it might be the only thing that can bring it back to life.
Robert