just posting some progress on the lab. just mounted the monitor and moved the new batteries to the basement. currently 3 proxmox hypervisors running a lot of vms for house control, git, remote access, and network labs for work. the new batteries are 8 160AH 12v that had an early retirement at work and were "disposed" of here. perfectly functioning, we just upgraded to larger batteries at the CO that these were pulled from. will be put into 4 24v strings. I estimate 14+hrs of runtime once completed. for now, they will be treated as an external battery pack for the ups, which now has a custom programming to accept them, charge, and calculate runtime. eventually I will add a stand-alone charger/inverter and might power the whole house with them. each is over 100lbs and that was not fun to move downstairs, so now we are pretty committed to this house.