Battery Recomendations

Has anyone ever tried using a jump starter pack like a Junp-N-Carry JNC660 ? I occasionally see this model as low as $100 on Amazon.

http://www.cloreautomotive.com/sku.php?id=244
http://www.cloreautomotive.com/uploaded ... 08%20C.pdf

It has a 12V DC power socket - manual claims you can run "appliances" off of it with a max 400w inverter. I find it appealing because of the multiple uses.

davecpap wrote:Has anyone ever tried using a jump starter pack like a Junp-N-Carry JNC660 ? I occasionally see this model as low as $100 on Amazon.

http://www.cloreautomotive.com/sku.php?id=244
http://www.cloreautomotive.com/uploaded ... 08%20C.pdf

It has a 12V DC power socket - manual claims you can run "appliances" off of it with a max 400w inverter. I find it appealing because of the multiple uses.

A good question. These devices have been discussed (sometimes rather heatedly) a number of times here. Some users swear by them, and I have to admit that the "all in one" nature is appealing. However, inside these are simply an 18-22 Amp-hour AGM battery with a cheap charger, and sometimes an inverter or even a tire inflator. Since AGM batteries should not be full discharged, you would not want to count on more than 12-14 AH from this battery, and that's marginal for one night with humidity. It is easy to put together a system with a 35 Amp-hour battery and a high quality charger for between $100 and $150, depending on how fancy you get. You can easily add a larger battery, or use charger for other purposes. In other words, if your primary need is jump starting cars, this is probably what you want. If its running a CPAP for a full night then you get more bang for the buck with a "home brew" system.

sleepy432 wrote:
I looked at the 1000' extension cord option but there would be isolation issues - it would have to be even longer or cross several trails and be an eyesore.

Buried conduit across trails? Clip the end off and pull the cable through at each trail, then bury the conduit. When you get to the cabin, sheath and heat shrink the cables after soldering together and taping.

I like the idea of panels better.

Hey all, thanks for all the info on this thread. I am considering the purchase of:

Vmaxtanks Vmaxslr125 AGM Deep Cycle 12v 125ah SLA rechargeable Battery for Use with Pv Solar Panels,Smart chargers wind Turbine and Inverters
found here: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00ACN ... _i=desktop

and
2 - Renogy 100 Watts 12 Volts Monocrystalline Solar Panel, found here:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B009Z6 ... _i=desktop

or do I need the polycrystalline ones here?
Renogy 100W Polycrystalline Photovoltaic PV Solar Panel Module
http://www.amazon.com/Renogy-Polycrysta ... 17KJAEQG2F

Any thoughts/warnings/recomendations/etc?

sleepy432 wrote:Hey all, thanks for all the info on this thread. I am considering the purchase of:

Vmaxtanks Vmaxslr125 AGM Deep Cycle 12v 125ah SLA rechargeable Battery for Use with Pv Solar Panels,Smart chargers wind Turbine and Inverters
found here: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00ACN ... _i=desktop

This looks like plenty of power for the basic essentials.

sleepy432 wrote: and
2 - Renogy 100 Watts 12 Volts Monocrystalline Solar Panel, found here:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B009Z6 ... _i=desktop

or do I need the polycrystalline ones here?
Renogy 100W Polycrystalline Photovoltaic PV Solar Panel Module
http://www.amazon.com/Renogy-Polycrysta ... 17KJAEQG2F

Any thoughts/warnings/recomendations/etc?

I got two of the 100 watt poly's, but I think my decision was based more on the exact size to fit a space on my boat. There are pros and cons to both, but the differences are small. Renogy has small clips that work well to attach the panels to a roof or mount. Make sure you use the beefiest wire you can get (12 gauge or heavier if its a long run) and get a charge controller. If you have any thought of adding more solar, get a controller a size up.

palerider wrote:

sleepy432 wrote:Thanks all for the advice. A few more details:

I use the battery primarily in a cabin 1000ft behind my house and up a hill so i often move it with my atv but with snow on the ground i have to sled the battery. I was getting 3 nights before having to drag it back to the bousr for charging.

solar panels?

This is the obvious solution unless there is no sun exposure. For a little more than the cost of a good battery, you can get a 100 watt solar charger that's putting out about 8 amps from nearly sun up to sun down. That should easily replenish the battery.

Too tall wrote:

palerider wrote:solar panels?

This is the obvious solution unless there is no sun exposure. For a little more than the cost of a good battery, you can get a 100 watt solar charger that's putting out about 8 amps from nearly sun up to sun down. That should easily replenish the battery.

I'll agree that solar is an obvious solution, and that a 100 watt panel should easily replenish a night's cpap use (with caveats). But the expected output is trickier to compute. The way its usually done is you find the "Average Solar Hours" for a location and season - for much of the US that's 3 hours in winter and 4 in summer - and then assume the panel puts out 100% for that amount of time. In other words, the 100 watt panel puts out 300 watt-hours in winter, or about 25 Amp-hours a day. This assumes good southern exposure and the panels angled appropriately for the latitude, but not actively tracking. The actual charge level is tricky because charging slows down as it approaches full, and of course any given day could be cloudy - even a mild overcast can seriously affect the charge rate. But with a big 125 AH battery, there should be plenty of reserve.

A timely question as I've been mulling over how to handle power outages. We have a generator but only run it for a few hours at a time and generally not overnight. Solar is an interesting option to look into.

I'll show this to my resident electricity guru.

Thanks!

I was looking over this thread. I know a lot about batteries and might be able to help if i could get primed with a little info. I take one needs either a 12V or 24 V battery depending on one's machine.

If I had a battery, how would I connect it to my machine. Is there a cable or something?

How many amp-hours are typically required to get through the night?

I fly RC airplanes and we use large LiPo batteries. They are compact and have no liquids in them. They are much lighter than lead acid type batteries. They are available in all increments of 4 volts so 12V or 24V is no problem.

If you camp a lot, the idea of a generator is not a bad one. Honda makes the best and the EU1000 is reasonably light weight and very quiet. In that case you can just plug it in and run off 120VAC. Of course you'd have to run the Gen all night if you did it that way. I have the EU2000. Generators are also nice to have for emergency power lose and fun things like going to a tail gate. I bring my blender and make Margaritas in the parking lot before an A's game. Honda's are a bit pricey though. Figure $900 for an EU1000 or $1000 for an EU2000.

With your 560 you would need one of these for a 12 volt battery. https://www.cpap.com/productpage/dc-pow ... hines.html Then if you use a regular battery you could connect these to the battery. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0041C ... _pd_nS_ttl and http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000NC ... _pC_nS_ttl
For light weight portability I use a Poweradd pilot pro and it comes with a plug that fits my the 60 series Respironics. http://www.amazon.com/Poweradd-Pilot-Pr ... +pilot+pro
This battery provides me with 2 nights but usually only use it for one then recharge. If you decide to try this battery get it at Amazon because a lot of people have gotten non-working ones and they have a good return policy. I was one of the lucky ones that got a working one the first time. It has an AC charger but since I recharge mine as we travel from my pickup batteries I use this 12 volt computer up charger also. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003WV ... ge_o01_s00

So I went ahead and looked up some stuff and have pretty much answered my own questions. The PR DC system is about $300 for a lead acid type with a charger. It is rated at 15 ampere hours and weights 13 pounds. Here is a solution using RC airplane hobby grade Lipo batteries. It is both lighter and less expensive. 2.6 pounds for the batteries and costs $158 dollars (plus some shipping) for the batteries, cable, and slow charger (4 hours) or $235 with a faster charger (1.5 hours). Interested? Then read on.

This battery is 5 Ah and costs about $29 dollars
http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/stor ... duct=16768
You need three in parallel to get get 15 Ah so that is $87 dollars for the batteries. The weight of three combined is only 2.6 pounds. You could easily get as many as 6 connected if you needed more power or more time.

You need a cable to connect the batteries together for both operation and charging. Here is a cable that can connect up to six of those batteries and costs $13
http://www.progressiverc.com/parallel-6 ... cable.html

However, you need a special charger for this kind of battery and the price depends on how fast you want to charge. Here is the smallest charger I have. It costs $58 and will run off AC or your car battery. It will charge the three batteries in about 4 hours.
http://www.amazon.com/Thunder-Balance-C ... nder+AC680

This a medium power charging I have. The cost is $135 and will charge 15 Ah is 1.5 hours.
http://www.progressiverc.com/the-starte ... combo.html

I realize this might be a little too DIY for a lot of the folks here but I already have the chargers so for me it would be a nobrainer when I need DC. I am happy to help anyone that wants to go this route. People might say that LiPo batteries are dangerous. They are a fire hazard and will ignite by themselves if you rupture them open somehow. But if you are reasonable careful, they are no more hazardous then a lot of the other things we deal with everyday.

OkyDoky wrote:This battery provides me with 2 nights but usually only use it for one then recharge.

Ahhhh. I should have figured that out. Those external laptop batteries are a cleaner solution. Here is another one that looks very popular on Amazon
http://www.amazon.com/Intocircuit-PC260 ... tery&psc=1

Keep in mind that the laptop battery packs are limited in the amount of current they are capable of. The one you listed shows 4 amps at 12 volts. If your machine draws more than that it won't work.

rhodesengr wrote:

OkyDoky wrote:This battery provides me with 2 nights but usually only use it for one then recharge.

Ahhhh. I should have figured that out. Those external laptop batteries are a cleaner solution. Here is another one that looks very popular on Amazon
http://www.amazon.com/Intocircuit-PC260 ... tery&psc=1

I don't think that one would be big enough. With the 32000mAh I am able to run my 760 bipap at pressures Epap11/ IPAP 15 without humidifier. Some people have to ramp up to get them to work.

HoseCrusher wrote:Keep in mind that the laptop battery packs are limited in the amount of current they are capable of. The one you listed shows 4 amps at 12 volts. If your machine draws more than that it won't work.

well if current is a problem with the laptop type batteries, that would not be a problem with the hobby batteries. They are designed to put out very high current for typically about 6 minutes but they have no problem running lower current for longer. Batteries are current rated by "C" number which normalizes the output current for 1 hour to its capacity. So a 1C, 5 Ah LiPo, would have a maximum current of 5 amps. The battery I quoted is 20C so it can put out 5*20 amps or 100 amps maximum. Of course at 100 amps it would be discharged in 3 minutes but it would have no trouble doing that. Since we'd have three in parallel, the current rating would be 300 amps which is far in excess of what we need here. I chose a lowish C rating for this type of battery 30C or even 60 C is quite common but more expensive and not needed here.

Just an option....and similar 24VDC batteries are also available.

If you are running humidifiers and need more power or power for longer, you would just use more in parallel or use a higher capacity. I can help select suitable batteries if you tell me what your actual ampere-hour or power consumption is.