"D" Battery Idea

[charlesfries]

Okay guys, I have sort of a radical idea here. After a bi of research, I discovered that standard D batteries are rated at 1.5V and 8Ah. Does this mean that I could have 32 D batteries wired in series to produce 48V at 8Ah? Also, if I created an additional 2 packs and then wired the packs in parallel, I would have 48V at 24Ah. Are their any downsides to this idea? Thanks!

[jman231994]

Hate to be dragging this up from a few weeks ago, but it seems nobody has answered your question and I have a partial answer, so yea.

Its not that radical to think of that. It's been done before on some electric vehicles. You would want to use rechargeable D cells. Which are rated at 1.2v I believe. And yea, wire them up in series to get the voltage you need. Call that pack 1, then make more pack 1's and wire them all in parallel. If you did 3 of them you would get 24ah as you said. The problems you could face relate to the ability of the batteries to pump out enough current, I'm not sure how much each can handle or how much they would need to handle so I'm not much help there. Other than that. Use PVC pipe to hold your batteries. Just feed them in and thread some contacts onto each end.

Good Luck and keep us updated

[scoten7]

This is a great idea. I am going to use this idea on some of my projects. I wont have to spend $50 on a 12v battery when I could just use AAs.

[91blaze]

It might work, but you would have 96 batteries. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm sure that would weigh alot and would cost almost $700. For that price you could buy the equivalent 4 mower batteries and then some. Rechargeable D batteries are about $7 apiece, so you do the math.

[jman231994]

Originally Posted by 91blaze

It might work, but you would have 96 batteries. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm sure that would weigh alot and would cost almost $700. For that price you could buy the equivalent 4 mower batteries and then some. Rechargeable D batteries are about $7 apiece, so you do the math.

Rechargeable batteries are cheap on ebay at decent capacities. However, the one problem is whether the capacities are true or not.
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/4x-10000m...item3f18d237ca

Seems a bit suspicious lol. I think C cell would be better based on ebay pricing and capacity.....all assuming its legit though

[KieranM]

You would save money in the long run by buying a decent rechargeable Lead acid or the sort. You will be broke buying those D batteries and the rechargeable ones are 3 times as expensive as normal. Not to mention the hassle involved in wiring them altogether.

Cant imagine it would be all that successful either man.

[Bluethunder3320]

i would go with car batteries

[r97]

I think the idea of saving money would probably go out the window, but the advantages of having a dry cell battery and not having to place huge, ugly car sized batteries in a small minibike frame would make it something to look into. I have been pondering a five speed electric minibike/motorcycle for sometime now, and the freedom to make my own, custom sized battery packs would be very helpful. Maybe look into battery packs from remote control toys?

[jman231994]

Originally Posted by KieranM

You would save money in the long run by buying a decent rechargeable Lead acid or the sort. You will be broke buying those D batteries and the rechargeable ones are 3 times as expensive as normal. Not to mention the hassle involved in wiring them altogether.

Cant imagine it would be all that successful either man.

Coming from running a bike in a competition last year with 2 40Ah batteries, weight is a major factor. We had 26kg of batteries alone. This year in the same competition all the teams are restricted to 5kg.....Trust me I've done the maths right. It is possible to build a decent capacity battery setup for under $200 running 36v, with C cell batteries. However as I said, I have no clue if the capacities are correct, so I may inevitably be wrong. We'll see though.

I'd like to make it clear I'm by far a fan of lithium batteries over anything else. Rules for this year say no LiPo though so thats why I'm so into this research. Lithium can get you around 10ah for $200 at 36v. NiMh can get you much more.

EDIT: Quoted wrong guy lol, all fixed now