Small 12 volt batteries

[kellymoe]

My kids have one of those ride on John Deere tractors. It uses a 12 volt battery which measures about 6x6x8. I was messing around with it today, charged it with my solar panel and ran a few items such as lights and a water pump. It got me thinking about their uses for travel. They seem to charge pretty quick, put out pretty good power and last a good amount of time. Has anyone used them for anything? They run about $40-60 new. I was thinking of using them to run lights, stereo, water pump etc....

[greybrick]

Here's the pdf on John Deere batteries, according to the specs it says to not 'flatten' the battery so I guess they are not a deep cycle type;

http://www.deere.com/en_INT/parts/genuine/batteries/battery_flyer.pdf

It also looks like they are all wet cell type with those problems, spillage, lots of gas venting, etc.

Here's (http://www.energyalternatives.ca/content/Categories/BatteriesInfo.asp) a good explanation on batteries used for alternate power use.

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[kellymoe]

This is the battery I was speeking of.
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.allwebtoys.com/images/battery/peg-perego_battery.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.allwebtoys.com/peg_perego_10.php&h=256&w=300&sz=14&hl=en&start=7&um=1&tbnid=Z_AkGBidDAxWeM:&tbnh=99&tbnw=116&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dpeg%2Bperego%2Bbattery%26um%3D1%26hl% 3Den%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26hs%3DM0B%26sa%3DN
Not a real John Deere but the Peg Perego ride on toys.

They seem to be sealed and I know they hold up to abuse from the way my kids ride that thing. I dont see any place for venting. I'll do a little more research and see what kind they are, gel, wet....? Edit: sealed lead acid

[ntsqd]

For the most part those are motorcycle starting batteries. There are sealed lead-acid 12VDC batteries in that size range. Used in UPS's etc. I think there's an Odessey nearly that size too. No idea how pricing compares.

[kellymoe]

My kids car draws a lot of power from it and the car lasts about an hour at full run time. This is much more draw than would be used for anything I would be using it for. There is a store down the street from my house that sells them much cheaper than you would get them from the toy companies. They have all the chargers and accessories to go with them. I'll be playing with the system this Summer.

[micklongley]

I build electric bikes using Sealed Lead Acid (SLC) batteries. They are great and I've developed a love for them. You have to decide what you want to power (12v @ ampsXtime in hours) with this formula you can decide on what amp-hour rating (size) of battery you need.

Here is an example for overlanding use, at night at camp:
12v @ amps used for accessories X time in hours
12v @ 4amps X 4 hours = 16amp-hour battery to support 4 amps for 4 hours or 1amp for 16 hours. Keep in mind this is %100 depth of discharge so you will need to double (32 amp-hour) to be at %50 depth of discharge at the least. Most batteries, including the ones I use only like to go down to %20 depth of discharge. So for this example, we would need to have a 80 amp hour battery!!! <--(16ah divided by .20 = 80) An 80 amp hour battery is pretty big! Also, keep in mind that our example is also pretty small at only 48 watts :)

The best way to do off-grid is old fashioned deep cycle lead acid batteries that can be discharged to roughly %50, only necessitating a 32 amp-hour battery in this case, which is a lot smaller.

If you only want to power a few small lights for a little while then the John Deere batteries might work for you, and you can always wire them in parallel to double your amp-hours.

Mick