03-17-2009, 05:02 PM
[quote bigpikeguy]Pon,
Ok i admit you sound like you know your stuff! I was just wondering how many of those 7ah gel cells would i need to get 120min out of them? Im thinking to match my Optima, which is 55ah i would need about 8 of them which would cost around $160.00 plus the cost of the material to link them all together. If that is the case it would be cheaper to buy an Optima, plus the Optima would be slightly lighter. Help me out here, im not really smart in this field here lol. My experience with electrical comes from tinkering with battery bikes and motorcycles. Yes, that works out correctly, 8 would match your optima and you would have to get them for less than $10 each including shipping to be worth the trouble. If you live near a big city you might find out who does the UPS maintainence and how often they switch out (1yr are usually like new) and if they will check and sell cheaply. Electric scooter/wheel chair companies are another source. Might be more practical to go to 2 or 3 larger capacity 28/20 ah batteries (or duct tape 7ah in groups of 2 or 4)which could be balanced for your pontoon/float tube to get better weight distribution. The last batch of SLAs I bought for my riding battery EV mower 2 years ago were internet specials of 40ah for about $40 each delivered.
So if i do decide to get the Gel cells how do you correctly link them all together? What would be a good way of charging them?? i got a 2 amp charger with a trickle would that work?
You wire them in parallel (all + together, then separately all - together) and make your connections at any available + and - as you do with a single battery. You can leave them connected that way to charge them (don't remove from charger as it is not a good idea to leave this many connected in parallel at rest) with a charger that cuts back to proper trickle. SLA, AGM and flooded chargers are all very slightly different in terminal and trickle parameters so you get best cycle life by using the proper one.
BTW your battery and motor system sounds really impressive!! How the heck do you get 4 hours out of a drill battery!?!?! Use the 36v dewalt Li-ion system and a special proprietary motor that draws 0.5 amp, see amazon link for battery. Commercial troll motors are very wasteful of electric power since they are designed to move very heavy loads at slow speeds. Their props are hidden behind the motor body and designed to be weed free which creates tremendous losses by blocking off water and causing slippage and water friction by the immersed motor.
PM me, i would love to hear all about this contraption of yours! I tend to be crafty so maybe i can make myself one
You can get the idea by mounting the smallest troll prop you can find on the end of a long shaft and connecting to a cordless drill. This will only run about 15-30 minutes though....
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Ok i admit you sound like you know your stuff! I was just wondering how many of those 7ah gel cells would i need to get 120min out of them? Im thinking to match my Optima, which is 55ah i would need about 8 of them which would cost around $160.00 plus the cost of the material to link them all together. If that is the case it would be cheaper to buy an Optima, plus the Optima would be slightly lighter. Help me out here, im not really smart in this field here lol. My experience with electrical comes from tinkering with battery bikes and motorcycles. Yes, that works out correctly, 8 would match your optima and you would have to get them for less than $10 each including shipping to be worth the trouble. If you live near a big city you might find out who does the UPS maintainence and how often they switch out (1yr are usually like new) and if they will check and sell cheaply. Electric scooter/wheel chair companies are another source. Might be more practical to go to 2 or 3 larger capacity 28/20 ah batteries (or duct tape 7ah in groups of 2 or 4)which could be balanced for your pontoon/float tube to get better weight distribution. The last batch of SLAs I bought for my riding battery EV mower 2 years ago were internet specials of 40ah for about $40 each delivered.
So if i do decide to get the Gel cells how do you correctly link them all together? What would be a good way of charging them?? i got a 2 amp charger with a trickle would that work?
You wire them in parallel (all + together, then separately all - together) and make your connections at any available + and - as you do with a single battery. You can leave them connected that way to charge them (don't remove from charger as it is not a good idea to leave this many connected in parallel at rest) with a charger that cuts back to proper trickle. SLA, AGM and flooded chargers are all very slightly different in terminal and trickle parameters so you get best cycle life by using the proper one.
BTW your battery and motor system sounds really impressive!! How the heck do you get 4 hours out of a drill battery!?!?! Use the 36v dewalt Li-ion system and a special proprietary motor that draws 0.5 amp, see amazon link for battery. Commercial troll motors are very wasteful of electric power since they are designed to move very heavy loads at slow speeds. Their props are hidden behind the motor body and designed to be weed free which creates tremendous losses by blocking off water and causing slippage and water friction by the immersed motor.
PM me, i would love to hear all about this contraption of yours! I tend to be crafty so maybe i can make myself one
You can get the idea by mounting the smallest troll prop you can find on the end of a long shaft and connecting to a cordless drill. This will only run about 15-30 minutes though....
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