Originally Posted by TheDL
Ok, I'm starting to put some ideas together and I need some advice from all you battery and electrical geniuses.
Ok, so I won me some Hella Marine lights that use 12v 37.5 watt bulbs. I'll only be running one of them. My commute is about 2.5~3.0 hours round trip. According to the math I'd need a battery with 7+Ah to make the trip w/o having to charge at the office. I was looking at the option of ten 1.2 volt D-Cell 9500mAh NiMh batteries (like
these) in series. That'd meet my power and run time requirements perfectly. My questions are....how do you charge such a beast? And how long would it take?
edit: Or I guess I could also use ten
1.2v 4500mAh NiMh C-Cells in series+parallel to get 12v w/ 9000mAh; but the questions are still the same.
Here's a 10 AH pack that comes with a smart charger
http://tinyurl.com/ab5tz, but I think a 37.5 Watt bulb is a bit of a power hog. That battery pack weighs almost 4 lb. and in cold weather you will be lucky to get 3 hours out of it. You might want to consider a 15 or 20 Watt bulb, if it will fit your Hella, and if your riding conditions permit.