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Old 09-18-2011, 10:08 AM   #6 (permalink)
California98Civic
Cyborg ECU
 
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Join Date: Mar 2011
Location: Coastal Southern California
Posts: 6,299

Black and Green - '98 Honda Civic DX Coupe
Team Honda
90 day: 66.42 mpg (US)

Black and Red - '00 Nashbar Custom built eBike
90 day: 3671.43 mpg (US)
Thanks: 2,373
Thanked 2,172 Times in 1,469 Posts
Quote:
Originally Posted by oil pan 4 View Post
Your typical 40lb lead acid battery holds up to 2 kwh from 0 to a full charge and about 1kwh of useable power between 12.8v to 10.8v volts.
Running it yesterday afternoon without the alt, the car ran more smoothly. Batt only got down to about 12.1 volts. I'll experiment with running it lower today, closer to 11.0 maybe if the car shows no sign of operating difficulty. Sound reasonable?

Quote:
Originally Posted by oil pan 4 View Post
I had a 1.5 amp charger for a long time, seemed to work ok for my car, but was useless for propery charging the large battery in my truck.
My new battery is actually smaller than stock. I considered a smaller and a larger battery for a long time. For the sake of my weight reduction goals, I took the risk. I know it might not last or might not even workout, but I wanted to experiment. Both the maintainer and the battery mount nicely on the stock battery tray.

Quote:
Originally Posted by oil pan 4 View Post
From what I have found solar panels that put out any less than 17 or 18 OCV are useless for charging 12 volt batteries, they look cool but don't really do anything.
If I understand correctly, I should be fine. The panels I am considering have an optimum voltage of 18 volts. Did I understand correctly?
__________________
See my car's mod & maintenance thread and my electric bicycle's thread for ongoing projects. I will rebuild Black and Green over decades as parts die, until it becomes a different car of roughly the same shape and color. My minimum fuel economy goal is 55 mpg while averaging posted speed limits. I generally top 60 mpg. See also my Honda manual transmission specs thread.



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