Gel, non-gel, Marine, non-Marine Batteries for power
greg nowell
I'm interested in knowing more about the different battery possibilities
for running a scope drive and Kendrick system at about 3.5 amp/hr.
Everyone says the downside of a marine battery is, you spill, and you
can kiss whatever the acid touches goodbye.
Gel batteries come in Marine and non-Marine configurations. Are the
non-marine gel configurations OK for repeated deep discharge and
recharging?
What are the relative costs of these different battery options?
And finally, where do you get a good selection of appropriate batteries?
thanks,
Al
This has enough reserve to drive my LX with dew heater for more than 2
nights. The battery pack comes with a built in charger, battery condition
lights, power take off receptacle, a nice case with handle and jumper
cables. Battery is sealed so that it can't leak and the weight is 20
pounds. I paid $50 for it 2 years ago and it still works fine. Look for it
in a membership retailer like Sam's Club or Costco.
Al
"greg nowell" <gno...@nospam.com> wrote in message
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Al Testani
greg nowell <gno...@nospam.com> wrote in message
news:3A39ACF3...@nospam.com...
HAVRILIAK
>in a membership retailer like Sam's Club or Costco.
$48/ea from Sams and its great
Rod Mollise
>I'm interested in knowing more about the different battery possibilities
>for running a scope drive and Kendrick system at about 3.5 amp/hr.
HI:
I've never had much luck with gel cells, I'm afraid. My choice? A sealed
motorcycle or lawn tractor type battery. You can easily place one of these in a
plastic battery box, put cigarette receptacles on the outside, etc. Neat
package. The advantage of a marine battery? Many over more current capacity,
and the "deep cycle" feature means that completely discharing one by accident
will not result in its destruction.
Peace,
Rod Mollise
Like SCTs and MCTs?
Check-out sct-user, the mailing list for CAT fanciers!
Goto <http://members.aol.com/RMOLLISE/index.html> and click the "sct-user"
logo...!
**********************************************************************
John Ford
After buying the $80 specials from stores with limited success, I
finally figured out that buying a premium quality sealed cell from
Optima was going to be cheaper in the long run and more reliable on
those rare "once in a long-time" dark-sky expeditions.
The Optima "Yellow-Top" deep-cycle sealed battery is about $160, but
sports 65Amp-hr capacity. It can be recharged two to three times more
often than the garden-variety deep cycle acid batteries, and can even
be mounted upside-down.
I found that the department store deep-cycle batteries can easily
deteriorate through very deep cycles or less-than-ideal charging. The
cost of these cheaper deep cycle batteries still ranges from $50 to
$150. These lead-acid batteries usually (but not always) give up after
30-50 full cycles. The Optimas, I am told, go for about 100-150 full
cycles. For me, that means a lifetime of at least 5 years instead of
1.5 years.
With the Optima, I can run Kendrick (four elements) at full blast,
Losmandy scope drives, inverter for laptop, and CCD for several full
nights, no problem. With the newer "smart" chargers available, the
battery is always fully charged and ready to go.
Based on my research, that is the choice I made. People in the boating
business have told me that I made the very best choice. (Every so
often, a blind squirrel finds a nut)
--
Clear skies,
John Ford
South-Eastern Michigan
jf...@inac.net
Sent via Deja.com
http://www.deja.com/
Janet L Miller
"Al" <aoccB...@worldnet.att.net> wrote in message
news:iui_5.17709$Ei1.1...@bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net...
> I use a lead/acid batter pack (17 AH) to drive my LX200 and Kendrick
system.
> This has enough reserve to drive my LX with dew heater for more than 2
> nights. The battery pack comes with a built in charger, battery condition
> lights, power take off receptacle, a nice case with handle and jumper
> cables. Battery is sealed so that it can't leak and the weight is 20
> pounds. I paid $50 for it 2 years ago and it still works fine. Look for
it
> in a membership retailer like Sam's Club or Costco.
>
status lights, charger and cigarette lighter receptacle. "EverStart Smart
Booster" is the name on the label. All in a nice, portable HD plastic case.
The only thing I don't like is the AC plug on the back, which requires a
separate extension cord (with no ground). A built-in, grounded, male plug
with a 4-6' cord would have been a nice thought. I may modify it if it gets
to be a pain
Paul Gustafson
Gus
"HAVRILIAK" <havr...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:20001215091319...@ng-ft1.aol.com...
Chuck Olson
them for $35?
Chuck
"Paul Gustafson" <dr...@erols.com> wrote in message
news:91e014$apt$1...@bob.news.rcn.net...
Paul Gustafson
Gus
"Chuck Olson" <chucko...@home.com> wrote in message
news:bAx_5.32973$M5.12...@news1.frmt1.sfba.home.com...
drdrb
Hi Greg,
There are marine deep cycle batteries and marine starting batteries,
just as there are non-marine deep cycle batteries and non-marine
starting batteries. "Marine" actually refers to the ability to
withstand the vibration, pounding and other harsh conditions found on
boats. Starting batteries are not designed to withstand repeated deep
discharge.
A 34 aH gel cell wheelchair battery would work well. They are deep
cycle and won't leak. They are available at Sears automotive stores. My
current one has been through about 200 cycles and is going strong.
Regards,
Dave Beckwith
greg nowell
to Wal Mart with my cell phone and stood in front of the batteries with my
engineer friend on the phone. There were no gel cells, so that part was
easy. There was a 34 amp hour deep cycle marine battery for $35 and a 75
amp hour batter for $40. Although the 75 amp hour batter ways much
heavier, it occupied the same $7 plastic box that I would have bought for
the smaller battery. So volume in the car would have been the same, a more
fundamnetal consideration than weight.
I went to radio shack and bought a 3 cigarette plug extension with a 10 amp
fuse which I think is more than I need: I'll be running the drives and a
kendrick, it's all I can think of for now, although a red light might be
nice. I worry about the cigarette plugs in heavy dew but aI suppose a
plastic bag over them would serve fine.
I tried the battery out tonight it was ten degrees F and it worked by
gumbo. I have a lot of kendrick strips and attached them everywhere
including to the battery pack that makes the drives work. The minimal
amount of heat kept them from quitting on me! So there I was tracking at
400x on Jupiter in crappy seeing. A 30 lb battery keeping the six C
batteries warm enough to function.
The charger was $20. So I guess I'm out about 70 or 80 bucks which is a
lot cheaper than having Mr. Kendrick mail me a piece of charged lead from
Canada. We'll see how it works out in the end. I will only be drawing
max 3.5 amps, less when the Kendrick is turned lower, so the battery should
be good for about 20 hours or three full nights of observing or more. It's
got some kind of warranty so I'll keep the paperwork. So I have a power
system and the good news is I have a Lozzie G11 on the way! I got "the
call" from Pocono yesterday, a partial compensation for a dreadful day
which included a three hour root canal with my maniacal dentist.
BTW, what happens when you overcharge a battery? My made-in-Mexico charger
informs me that it does not turn itself off automatically and that
overcharging is a bad, bad, thing, but no explicit threats are made.
thank you all,
Greg Nowell
ps. As an aside, one reason I was very keen to have a stand-alone battery
was that my friend with a G11 and Kendrick rather routinely drained his
power on his Camry at long observing sessions and was dependnet on the
kindness of strangers to get a jump to go home. I decided that was living
a little too dangerously.
Tim Povlick
Greg,
Check out the AGM - Absorbed Glass Mat Technology
batteries from Concorde.
http://www.windsun.com/Batteries/Battery_FAQ.htm
Read the FAQ and decide for yourself. Since these are
used in military and aircraft, they must be decent.
You can wander off to the Concorde site and see
more batteries.
http://www.concordebattery.com/products/marine_rv_bats/marine_bats/marine_bats.htm
A cute little charger kit is this one which 'works for me'.
http://www.radiowise.com/prod/aa/aaspec/150bat.htm
___
Tim
Chuck Olson
oxygen and hydrogen and dries out the battery, or if the battery is sealed,
the gasses are recombined in the battery, producing heat (gently). The
sealed battery is expensive. For a cheap battery it would be best to spend
a little more money on the charger and get one that's called "automatic"
which charges only to a certain limited terminal voltage, calculated to be
safe, and not lose too much water. Also, if you get a lot of oxygen and
hydrogen in a small space, and if there is ever a spark, like from
disconnecting the charger, you get all that heat real fast - - called an
explosion.
Chuck
"greg nowell" <gno...@wsg.net> wrote in message
news:3A3AEDBC...@wsg.net...
mark d. doiron
news:3A3AEDBC...@wsg.net...
snip
> my friend with a G11 and Kendrick
> rather routinely drained his
> power on his Camry at long observing
> sessions and was dependnet on the
> kindness of strangers to get a jump to
> go home. I decided that was living
> a little too dangerously.
snip
Greg--
hey--i you ain't living on the edge, you're taking up too much room!
;-)
clear, dark skies--
mark d.
Gerald Pearson & Sue Sarlette
very much about the desirability of these batteries. They combine the
advantages of gel cell and flooded (non-gel) lead-acid batteries.
The only downside is that they are a little pricy (similar to gel cell
batteries). As with any lead-acid battery, you should use it with a
good 3-stage charger so that you do not abuse it and seriously shorten
its lifetime by routinely overcharging it.
If any of you were at Astrofest last September, you might have seen the
Popular Astronomy Club Mobile Observatory. This was the thing built
into a 14-foot Wells Cargo brand trailer, with a dome on top and a 12"
Meade SCT inside.
I designed and installed the electrical system in this observatory. It
is powered by two group 27 AGM batteries (65 lbs, 95 amp hours each)
http://www.concordebattery.com/products/marine_eleclspeifications.cfm
plus a PROwatt 800 inverter and a TRUECHARGE 10TB 3-stage charger from
Statpower http://www.statpower.com/home.htm The AGM batteries are
mounted ON THEIR SIDES on the floor, with 1.5" x 1/8" aluminum angle
piece to prevent the batteries from sliding around on the floor, plus
steel straps over the top to prevent them from bouncing up. No battery
boxes were needed, because of the safety characteristics of AGM
batteries.
Since Spring 1998, we've have a 210 amp-hour AGM battery MOUNTED ON ITS
SIDE under the middle bench seat in our minivan, with no battery box and
no venting. Lifeline GPL-4DL battery, 130 pounds,
http://www.concordebattery.com/products/marine_eleclspeifications.cfm
We have absolutely no trace of battery leakage, but do not try this with
a conventional battery, or you will wind up with either an explosion
and/or with battery acid eating holes through the floor.
We recharge it with a TRUECHARGE 10 charger
http://www.statpower.com/home.htm We can also recharge directly from
our minivan's alternator THROUGH AN AMMETER by turning on a switch.
When the charge current from the alternator drops below a few amps, I
turn off the switch so that the battery doesn't overcharge.
With a PROwatt 800 inverter http://www.statpower.com/home.htm we convert
the 12 volt battery power to 110 volt AC, enough to power the 500 W
microwave oven in our pop-up camper and to provide power at star parties
to our laptop computer and the synchronous motor on an equatorial
mount. We've even used a conventional hair dryer for very brief bursts
of heat to blow dew off of optics. And, of course, we've got oodles of
12 volt DC capability.
-- Gerry
To...@astro.net
<rob...@epsomsalts.mit.edu> wrote:
>In article <3A3B06CF...@home.com>, Tim Povlick
><pote...@home.com> wrote:
>
>> Check out the AGM - Absorbed Glass Mat Technology
>> batteries from Concorde.
>>
>> http://www.windsun.com/Batteries/Battery_FAQ.htm
>>
>> Read the FAQ and decide for yourself. Since these are
>> used in military and aircraft, they must be decent.
>
> I searched the web a few days ago for battery info and just
>found lots of catalog and faq sites. Does anyone here have pointers
>to temperature vs. amp-hour graphs?
From CQ magazine last year (ham radio mag):
A short summary of the CQ magazine artical I referenced the other day
on the effects of cold weather on batteries.
Basically here's what the artical says. Chemical reactions slow down
at colder temperatures. As they get cold their usable capacity
decreases. The internal resistance goes up and the open-cell voltage
goes down.
At ROOM temp, the following watts hours per cell (WHPC) show as
follows:
NiMH - nearly 1.5 WHPC
NiCds - nearly 1.0 WHPC
Alkaline rechargables - 1.5 WHPC
Lithium ion disulfide - nearly 3.5 WHPC
Regular alkalines - about 2 3/4's WHPC
At 32 degrees F, the following watts hours per cell (WHPC) show as
follows:
NiMh - nearly 1.5 WHPC (A hair less than at room temp)
NiCds - about three quarters of a whpc
Alkaline rechargables - nearly 1 whpc
Lithium ion disulfide - nearly 3.0 whpc
Regular alkalines - just over 1.5 whpc
At -4 degrees f, the following watts hours per cell (WHPC) show as
follows:
NiMh - just under 1.0 whpc
NiCds - a hair over 0.50 whpc
Alkaline rechargables - just under 0.50 whpc
Lithium ion disulfide - 2.5 whpc
Regular alkalines - about 0.75 whpc
Obviously the Lithiums are the best under cold weather conditions,
with regular alkalines coming in second followed by NiMhs, rechargable
alkalines then NiCds.
Now, about lead acid batteries. These refer to both gel cells and
vented lead acids (deep cycle marine), they retain 95% of their room
temperature capacity at 32 degrees F. At about -4 degrees f they go to
70% under light loads, 50% under heavy loads.
Back issues of CQ magazine (the artical once again is in the December
1999 issue) can be ordered through the magazine of coarse.
Go to: http://www.cq-amateur-radio.com/
Hope this helps everyone during the cold weather season.
Tom - KB2SMS
http://www.idsi.net/~trandall/welcome.html
>So far clouds have moved in each
>night before I could determine by experiment whether my gel-cell or
>I caved into the cold first.
>--
>dark skies,
>Robert Lane
>
Tim Povlick
A very interesting post Gerry, thanks for taking
the time to post. Squirreled this one away.
Clear/Dark Skies
------
Tim
Barry Johnson
hundreds of times. They have no "memory" as with some other battery
technologies. Lead acid batteries, except marine, can however be ruined by
too deep a discharge. A 12V battery should not be discharged lower than
about 10.5 volts.
You can buy sealed lead-acid batteries that will not spill and can be
operated in any position. These are used in computer Uninterruptible Power
Sources, for example.
You can get also get them in various sizes mail order from H & R company,
Moorestown, NJ
http://www.herbach.com
I have a 12V 15 Amp hour battery that sold for $25 at H & R driving my
Celestron 8 with heated dew cap, dec motor and digital setting circles.
It's 9 yrs old and still works fine, and lasts at least three full nights
without being recharged.
You need a charger for it too (about $20 at auto supply stores).
greg nowell
got a box which I wrap with a cord so I think most of the spill problem is
contained. Now that I have a fully charged battery I'm wondering *how long* I
can go before needing to charge it again. For example, if I charge after
using, and wait two months to go out agian, how much will it die just sitting
around? gno...@wsg.net