In many hybrid cars NiMH batteries are used. Advantages are better power to weight ratio and (I believe) up to 500 deep (near 100%) discharge cycles. I'm wondering if NiMH would be a good alternative for frequent campers. Purchase price is much higher than a conventional wet cell battery, but comparable to the high end gel and AGM ones. Cheapest I found is about $6/cell for 10Ah individual (1.2V cells). (e.g. http://www.batteryspace.com ) Hence building a 10Ah 12V pack is $60, 20Ah $120, 40Ah $240 etc. Because they are tolerant to deep discharges, one can buy less capacity than for a lead-acid. For example running an LPG furnace for one night one might need about 20Ah. (The German Truma uses ~20W at full power and less than 10W at half. 20W @ 12 V is 1.7A, and for 10h use is then 17Ah. A remaining problem is that most inexpensive chargers one can buy are for slow charging (ie 10+ hours). For typical travel and camping use I would prefer a charegr that could fully/mostly charge the battery in a couple of hours of driving between campsites. Martin |
Please note - During the past 17 years of operation, several gigabytes of
Vanagon mail messages have been archived. Searching the entire collection
will take up to five minutes to complete. Please be patient!
Return to the archives @ gerry.vanagon.com
The vanagon mailing list archives are copyright (c) 1994-2011, and may not be reproduced without the express written permission of the list administrators. Posting messages to this mailing list grants a license to the mailing list administrators to reproduce the message in a compilation, either printed or electronic. All compilations will be not-for-profit, with any excess proceeds going to the Vanagon mailing list.
Any profits from list compilations go exclusively towards the management and operation of the Vanagon mailing list and vanagon mailing list web site.