On 1/6/2013 6:23 PM, Steve Shore wrote:
CZ, OK tell us where you acquired the NiCD batts, how you hook them up with diagrams, etc. Share the info is my mantra.
We bought 9,000 or so of them military surplus about 8 years ago. They come up from time to time, from things like jet engine APU starters for Vulcan anti-missile defense systems that were cancelled and whatnot.
You'll need an 18 wheeler, a CDL driver, and a smile to get them off the warehouse lot. There is also a group called BB600 that supports them.
For interconnects we comissioned a guy to have copper buss bar machined, drilled, and most important: *NICKEL PLATED*. This cost another dollar or two a cell, but is critical.
60 of them go in the back of the tractor with 2*4's as spacers between quadrants of 15. Good place to mount your E-meter Link20 shunt and fuses. 30 go in the front, and 30 can be put in the Elec-trak rear battery box.
Charge them with the Elec-trak charger, yes it's never supposed to work, ya da ya da ya. I do that or I use a Solarex SC30 charge controller jumpered to 36 volts. You get them from Australia. Bad idea, get a modern MPPT charge controller and use a big solar array with it.
Then water them once or twice a year and there you go! Chris
Thanks, Steve www.watts-up-elec-traks.com On Jan 6, 2013, at 3:51 PM, The CZ Unit <cz alembic crystel com> wrote:On 1/6/2013 1:32 PM, Brian E. Haines wrote:Personally I think $900 for a set is a little steep. 700 or so is what I paid a couple of years ago, but that may have gone up.Or aircraft NiCD batteries. If you can get them for $10 a cell, 90 of them would be $900 and they would last for 100 or so years. I don't know how long I have been running the ET on these cells, 7-8 years at least (and they cost $2 a cell because we bought an um... lot... of them) C _______________________________________________ Elec-trak mailing list Elec-trak cosmos phy tufts edu https://cosmos.phy.tufts.edu/mailman/listinfo.cgi/elec-trak