I've been running on a "zombie" controller which once died on me and then somehow came back to life (I think it re-soldered a cold-solder joint when it got hot). Yesterday, it dies completely (sparks, smoke, noise) and I'm in the middle of SF bay.
But I had a spare I bought when I thought the zombie was dead. 10 minutes later I've swapped it in and heading home. Try that with a diesel :)
I also have my batteries set up so that I can run on Bank A, Bank B or both. Bank B is only 4 old tired batteries with about 15 usable AH so I usually run on bank A (80AH). In practice I don't switch over that often - but knowing I can reduces a lot of "range anxiety". If bank B were healthy there'd be some benefit to running in both all the time, but at my normal 40amp draw it's not that significant.
Also...learning that there's more than one way to connect the chargers when running under generator. I had mine hooked up directly to the controller - so it's still paralleled in with the batteries - and in this config it would seriously lug my generator and I couldn't go much over 20amps. Connecting the leads to the batteries instead I can now pull any amps I want (assuming the batteries have some charge). I'm at a loss to explain the difference - I originally thought it was an idiosyncrasy of my charger but I've used a different one with the same results.
-Keith
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