Monday, March 14, 2005
Batteries!
My brother gave me a lead on a guy, Vern, who deals in used batteries. I drove up to Whitmore Lake yesterday to see what Vern had in stock, and it turned out that he had 18 6-volt sealed lead-acid batteries. I noted the model number, Best Power BAT-0050, and came back home and looked them up on the web. It turns out that they're 200 amp-hour batteries, comparable to the 225 a-h Trojan T-105 batteries that I was planning on buying, and the list price is about $190 each (the T-105's can be bought for about $75 plus about $10 each for shipping). Vern said they were one year old, and I could have them for $20 each! The bargain I was hoping for!
So I bought them all (he actually sold me all 18 for $300); they should perform at least adequately for my 48-volt system (I'll use the 16 best ones and keep the others as spares). I had to make two trips to Whitmore Lake to haul them all back--they weigh 70 pounds each and I didn't think my VW would handle them all at once. I lugged them all to the basement, checked their voltage with my multi-meter, and started charging the ones that were low. Here are some photos of the batteries:
So I bought them all (he actually sold me all 18 for $300); they should perform at least adequately for my 48-volt system (I'll use the 16 best ones and keep the others as spares). I had to make two trips to Whitmore Lake to haul them all back--they weigh 70 pounds each and I didn't think my VW would handle them all at once. I lugged them all to the basement, checked their voltage with my multi-meter, and started charging the ones that were low. Here are some photos of the batteries:
