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WalMart Portable Battery Pack?
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#13
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WalMart Portable Battery Pack?
Michael Wood wrote: On 22 Feb 2004 16:39:41 GMT, (Rod Mollise) wrote: OTOH I suspect the deep cycle batteries might be better for higher current drawing equipment, like a dew heater system. Hi: Or maybe not even then. I've been using one of the Walmart yellow "Prestone" jump start packs for a couple of years to power a goto scope and a Dewbuster heater system. Never have had a problem. I do recharge in the mornings, though, and if the setup includes a CCD camera, computer, etc., a big deep-cycle battery is definitely recommended. Peace, Rod Mollise Author of _Choosing and Using a Schmidt Cassegrain Telescope_ Like SCTs and MCTs? Check-out sct-user, the mailing list for CAT fanciers! Goto http://members.aol.com/RMOLLISE/index.html Rod, My more than gracious wife has a agreed to buy me the NS11 GPS for my 50th bday this year. Have been considering the the Orion "Dynamo" or the Celestron twin because they're made for powering these scopes. I admit, I don't know a great deal about batteries and my concern with buying something at KMart or Wal-Mart is that I will somehow fry the electronics and then negate the warranty. Most are 12 volt so should I just be watching the amps or what. Just make sure that you have sufficient battery capacity (expressed in amp-hours) to run your telescope and accessories for your observing sesion. More is better. The Celestron and Orion power tanks store 7 amp-hours. My Target Greatland power tank puts out 12 amp hours; my Celestron 114GT draws .75 to 1 amp, so my power tank can in theory run the scope for 12 hours to 16 hours. The Celestron/Orion tank would power the same scope for 7 to 9 hours. A scope plus accesssories that draw 2 amps would run 6 to 8 hours on the Greatland and 3.5 to 4.5 hours on the Celestron. Hope this helps you. -- Pat O'Connell [note munged EMail address] Take nothing but pictures, Leave nothing but footprints, Kill nothing but vandals... |
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#16
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Just a word of warning about the "Vector" brand jumpstart batteries.
The darn thing takes 2 or 3 days to develop a full charge and if you let it sit a couple of weeks without use, then you have to charge it again. Either I got a defective battery or the thing is nearly useless since it requires so much time to charge and then loses the charge so rapidly in storage. My older Target Greatland 7 Ah is still gowing strong after 3 years and works great. Recharge time is minimal and it holds charge well in storage. --- Michael McCulloch |
#17
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WalMart Portable Battery Pack?
Michael McCulloch wrote in message . ..
Just a word of warning about the "Vector" brand jumpstart batteries. The darn thing takes 2 or 3 days to develop a full charge and if you let it sit a couple of weeks without use, then you have to charge it again. Either I got a defective battery or the thing is nearly useless since it requires so much time to charge and then loses the charge so rapidly in storage. [...] You must have one with a defective battery. I have 7 Vectors (among some others) and the Vectors work very well and have for years. |
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#19
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Michael McCulloch wrote in message . ..
On 23 Feb 2004 05:18:56 -0800, (Thad Floryan) wrote: You must have one with a defective battery. I have 7 Vectors (among some others) and the Vectors work very well and have for years. After a night of typical use what is the approx time required to recharge to 100% for your 19 Ah Vectors? Mine literally takes 2 or 3 days to recharge after a light use. Beginning charging at, say, 6 - 6:30am, it'll be ready to go when I return home around 9pm -- that's 18 hours -- and this has been the story for all of mine. Some of my older (non-Vector) "jump start" systems are beginning to take awhile to recharge, but I'm really not surprised since the expected lifetime of the batteries ranges 3-5 years. These are the identical type of battery that's used in (for example) APC UPS systems (for computers) whose lifetime is also specified ranging 3-5 years. If your Vector system is 3+ years old then what you're experiencing is normal. But don't despair! Visit http://www.batterymart.com/ for all your battery needs; their pricing is about 1/3 to 1/4 less than the manufacturers' and I've been buying from them for quite awhile for both personal and business gel-cells (and other). |
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WalMart Portable Battery Pack?
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