Leisure Batteries

[Royston]

What rating do most people use for charging lipos in the field?
75, 85, 100AH etc??
Cheers
Roy

[guest325]

Get the biggest one you can afford, no substitute for excess capacity - another tip for you, if you can fit it in your budget get a pv panel to charge it with as well - we have one at our club, battery is permanently on charge, never lets us down!

[Royston]

Cheers Darrell
What';s a pv panel though ?

[guest325]

Photovoltaic, commonly and wrongly called solar panels. Have a look for them in the caravan or marine accessory suppliers alternatively if you live in a fairly windy area a small wind turbine is good.
I';m working on a design for a pv panel control system that tracks the best source of light hence best charging capabilities for use at home to power my battery charger and led garden lighting system.

[Royston]

Cheers
Will have a look

[guest325]

Once you';ve broke even with the purchase charging or powering becomes free!

[Royston]

I like it Darrell depending on outlay.
Googling as we speak

[JerryCampbell]

A wise investment. And free electricity is great.
Everything we have is solar powered as you can see from the top of our bus.
Jerry

[guest325]

Here you go!
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/like/161057406947?lpid=83&device=m&adtype=pla&crdt=0&ff3=1&ff11=ICEP3.0.0&ff12=67&ff13=80&ff14=83&ff19=0
And this
http://item.mobileweb.ebay.co.uk/viewitem?itemId=151094329151

[Royston]

Thanks Darrell.
Does it need to be 100w to be efficient enough as seen smaller/cheaper ones??

[guest325]

The 80W ones are quite a bit cheaper and would easily do battery charging, the 100W does my lighting as well!

[Royston]

Cheers
How long would it take to fully charge say an 85AH battery using an 80W panel??

[guest325]

At 12 volts from an 80W panel you will get about 6A (allowing for any losses so it will be 85/6 hours roughly.

[Royston]

Cheers Darrell
More research then
Thanks again

[kibi]

Sorry to hijack this thread, but I am fascinated with solar / wind energy. Earlier this year I set up an off grid solar system upon my workshop roof. It works quite well, I have not used mains electricity in the workshop since May.
My system is way bigger than what one would use in the field, but the principals are the same. At least I can say that my quad is truly solar powered provided I charge the batteries in the workshop. :)

Here is a link to the build details if anyone is interested.

http://www.eevblog.com/forum/projects/solar-powered-workshop-take-two/

I record my daily harvest here.

http://www.pvoutput.org/list.jsp?id=21185&sid=19064

Live data can be seen here.

https://xively.com/feeds/611817707

[guest325]

Sorry to hijack this thread, but I am fascinated with solar / wind energy. Earlier this year I set up an off grid solar system upon my workshop roof. It works quite well, I have not used mains electricity in the workshop since May.
My system is way bigger than what one would use in the field, but the principals are the same. At least I can say that my quad is truly solar powered provided I charge the batteries in the workshop. :)

Here is a link to the build details if anyone is interested.

http://www.eevblog.com/forum/projects/solar-powered-workshop-take-two/

I record my daily harvest here.

http://www.pvoutput.org/list.jsp?id=21185&sid=19064

Live data can be seen here.

https://xively.com/feeds/611817707

Fantastic, with that sort of setup you could easily power some of the house as well; I think at some stage I would like to get into bigger panels and contributing to the house supply but not just yet.

[kibi]

The larger panels are almost half the price per watt of the smaller ones which are more suited to camping etc. However, controlling more powerful arrays becomes more expensive. It is fun though.

[guest325]

The larger panels are almost half the price per watt of the smaller ones which are more suited to camping etc. However, controlling more powerful arrays becomes more expensive. It is fun though.

That';s part of the reason why - controls for bigger systems means bigger bucks. My idea is to use the small readily available arrays with their controls but optimise their efficiency by tracking the highest available source of light. In real terms for me if I can power my charger and lighting for my garage and possibly eventually looking to power a domestic (LED) lighting system then that';s enough for me. The problem as I see it with commercially available PV systems is payback time - at my age I don';t expect to ever get payback so it';s a no no!