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Read the followup comments, and would like to add a couple of my own...
First, I'm glad I simply bought a battery and got on with it. I think that 3 years is around a good life-cycle for a battery - which is what I had gotten on the old one even though it hadn't been showing any signs of being done with - but due to that amount of life on it I'm not unhappy about putting in a new battery. Up in West Yellowstone, with no A&Ps and no shop available, it was much easier just to put a new one in and be done with it. Took less than a half hour to install, button up, and be doing the preflight for the trip home.
Second, on the idea of not being able to sart the front from the rear only running, that would be an interesting experiment to try some time with a known weak battery. I have been able to start the rear first and then the front when I tried it before, but that wasn't with a flat battery.
Third, I made myself a set of special jumper cables for starting the bird remotely where there might not be any 24V sources. What I did was to create a small jumper that can connect between the minus side of one 12V battery to the plus side of a second 12V battery. Then I have the standard 2 cables which can be connected from the one remaining plus post and one remaining minus post. So by connecting in series I can get 24 volts.
But - aha - for me that would only allow me to get them started; I'd have to do something else about getting alternators back on line, since my early model has no "restart" DC pack to do that. I guess I could simply connect to the battery posts instead of using the exterior connection cable, though.
Others might consider that little trick who are sometimes way out in the boonies. If there are any cars around you can probably beg/borrow 2 batteries long enough to get 24V with a series hookup.
Last, my plane has dual hydraulic pumps. I wonder if it needs to "borow" battery power to get the gear up (assuming they're both working)? Would be interesting to know.
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Hybrid Mode
