[DougVieyra]

Ahhh, the warm look back . . . .
Right now, and for the last twenty years, I have used 18 volt Solar Panels to charge my bank of 12 Volt batteries, which run the electrical system of my remote ranch.

However, in the twenty years before that, my bank of 12 volt batteries were charged by a Jacobs Wind Turbine, circa 1942 - one of the last of its kind, having begun production around 1924 or so. The Jacobs produced 32 Volts of Direct Current (DC) electricity. Prior to the expansion after WW11 of 'Grid' electricity (110-120 AC), rural America lived on either kerosene or 32 Volt D.C. electricity. In the 1920's, 1930's and 1940's, because so much of rural America lived with 32 Volt D.C. electricity, there were a great many products sold in every rural store and catalog in America - that ran on 32 V.DC.

With the widespread influence (driven by a U.S. Government program of 'Rural Electrification') of 'modern' (and MUCH more efficient) 110-120 AC electricity, slowly the 32 Volt DC products and the 32 V.DC generators that powered them, began to fade from the market place and the rural 'homesteads'. By the time I was using my Jacobs 32 V.DC there were only two products still being made the ran on 32 V.DC.

So I reconfigured my Battery Bank to continue taking in 32 V.DC from the Jacobs Generator, BUT reconfigured the Battery Bank Out Flow to the more common 12 V. DC. Because of the trucking industry and later the emerging RV markets, there were a great many 12 V.DC products that replaced the 32 V.DC products. And that is what I still use today.