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Hi All,

For those who are currently running the with out alternators...

What kind of battery setup are you running? How is it working? Any issues?

Do you think two 12v Marine Batteries in parallel would work?

Thank you all in advance!

I was just sniffing around for the same answer in this post.

It seems to me that lead acid is not a good choice since they are heavy and do not like to be deeply discharged.

I'm wondering if lithium or NiMH might be better. Can NiMH even supply the demanded cranking amps?

NimH could be made to work, but, it would cost you. Twin deep cycle LA batteries sounds like a good idea to me, so long as you don't push them too hard. I would suspect that 2 good sized deep cycles would give you at least a few hours of headlights on driving without putting much of a dent in them.

Someone in an other thread posted about using a 8 and 6 volt batteries to get the optimal 14 volts. The trick will be charging with a panel and it would be a bit pricey, but I need at least one battery anyways... Would a 12 volt panel work? As I said in the other reply... 12v panel open is 18 to 21 volts. Wonder if it would charge a 14v. Course panels are not hard to make and a custom panel would be no harder to build than any other voltage.

Not reall, but it is possible. The problem with NiMH is you can only hope to roughly get about the amp hour rating as your amp out put, your standard AA size 2300mAh battery will only put out about 2 amps, a true D size will only put out maybe 8-10 amps per row of cells.

Each stack of A123 LiFePO4 cells is good for 110 cranking amps and a whole lot of load amps.

Yeah that was me.

Charging them would be very simple.

The only reservation I have on that idea is the two different batteries. You want to keep them the same.

So, back to the topic. Anyone have any updates?

You guys are thinking way overkill. :p

I just use a group 24 lead acid deep cycle battery. ~75Ah and it'll easily take me 50 miles with headlights on. Of course YMMV.

Battery makers will use the same identical cells in 3 cell (6volt), 4 cell (8volt) and 6 cell (12volt) stacks stacks to make different voltage batteries.
That is like me going to radio shack, buying a 4 AA cell holder and an 8 AA cell holder and making a 6 volt battery and a 12 volt battery and cominding them to make an 18 volt battery.
If you buy a 6 and 8 volt battery made with the same kind of cells and serries them up its no different than serriesing up two 12 volt batteries for 24v.

Thank you for your relevant input! So, one of these should be more than enough, right?
Buy Autocraft Marine 12-Volt Marine/RV Dual-Purpose Service Battery 31DP-6 at Advance Auto Parts

Yeah, that is a group 31. They typically have ~100-110Ah rating (@ 20 hrs of course). Just watch your voltage to see how much range you have under different circumstances and you'll get used to it pretty quick.

@Doax, Thank you for your help. I think I will try just one of those as you recommended. I will double check to make sure it will fit under the hood. It will be tight, but I think it will.

I usually only drive 10 miles one way and back. During the day I plan on using a small solar charger I have laying around to trickle charge it while I am at work. I know it won't be much, but heck, it will be free energy.

Take care.