Club 80-90 Forums

I work for a company that manufacture heavy machinery, for some of our units we use 1.4v NiCad Cells linked together to make up 12 or 24v units instead of Lead Acids.

2 of these 12v units have 'come into my posession' and I am planning to use one as an LB.

Apparently they like slow discharge so Im hoping it might work ok. Has anyone ever done this?

Whats the capacity of them individually and whats their charging spec'
mike

Dunno - I will find out tomorrow and post!

OK - there are 10 x 1.4v cells each rated @ 24A/hrs, so 240A/hrs

fodtommo wrote:OK - there are 10 x 1.4v cells each rated @ 24A/hrs, so 240A/hrs

If you were to connect them in parallell you would get a 1.4V 240 Ahr battery, Current is additive.
But if you connect them in series I think you will end up with a 12V 24Ahr battery. Currrent is common.

T

as ^^^ ssays, not really much use to you
mike

oh well free stuff cant always be useful, thanks guys

Hello,

I've just fitted LED lights throughout, with eventually a 12 volt video consumption.

With a drain of 6 watts, you can use your nicads no problem. I wouldn't try linking them to a split charger, just recharge them when they run out. Should last for months....

Cordialement,

sarran1955 wrote:Hello,

I've just fitted LED lights throughout, with eventually a 12 volt video consumption.

With a drain of 6 watts, you can use your nicads no problem. I wouldn't try linking them to a split charger, just recharge them when they run out. Should last for months....

Cordialement,

With a drain of 6W (about 4 LED lamps) equaling 0.5A you will get about 30 - 40 hours use. Add a TV or run your radio from the batteries and this will drop dramatically.
Also watch out for the dreaded NiCd memory effect. Recharging a partly discharged battery will reduce the depth to which the battery can be charged in future.
T

As a side note....NiCads have an inherrant issue with memory retention. To ensure 100% capacity is available they need to be fully discharged and recharged regularly. If they are recharged from say 50% and often, you run the risk of the batteries only allowing 50% of there capacity to be available.

Martin