December 04 Thursday, 2008 - 15:26
WB6JPI -
It was dead. I held services for the battery. It was an old series of 10 lead-acid "D" cells that were popular and expensive in the 70s. I had bought them in about 1980 and never used them. They took a charge and ran a 7A load for about 15 minutes so I decided that they were good to go and installed them into the GeoTrans, fully charged. They ran for a couplke days and then I installed the solar panel, but the panel was poorly oriented (in a bush) and I guess it didn't keep up. The batteries went down during the night and the voltage went to 1.6V and nothing I could do would get it to go over 4.5 volts. Dead.
I bought a 7.2 V 2AH pack from Radio Shack for $10 and charged it for about 1.5 hours (out of the 5 to get full charge but I had to go) Installed the painted solar panel on a 7 ft post pointed south. If the sun shines (It wasn't when I left) then the battery should make it. If not I will return and charge it better. I am doing some tests on another panel to see just how much charge I get when cloudy.
IP : 76.172.87.238
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