Probably a good thread to ask: A few years ago when looking for it, I was able to easily find deep-discharge 100Ah 12V lead-acid batteries at reasonable prices,

Probably a good thread to ask: A few years ago when looking for it, I was able to easily find deep-discharge 100Ah 12V lead-acid batteries at reasonable prices, which would have allowed one of my projects to go off-grid. However, what I couldn't find was a charge controller that would be able to reasonably e.g track charge and time. I didn't have the time and sufficient expertise to design such a charge controller myself. My options ended up being buy a pre-made, significantly more expensive UPS and pay for the up-down conversion loses; Or just used my 12V feed with no monitoring and hope for the best. I chose the latter, which ended up OK given this was a research project with a limited time horizon. Is the situation any better today?