8 x AA Batteries, any use on a boat?

Channel Ribs

Channel Ribs

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The island of Alderney
www.alderneymarine.com
I bought from Maplin an eight AA battery holder, for a project which it turns out is not going to work.

So, not wanting to waste anything, I find myself wondering how much use it might be on my (fairly minimum) boat.

Perhaps powering the LED anchor light or the LED nav lights?

Could it be up to running the fixed VHF, which is used almost entirely on recieve?

With decent batteries rather than Tesco value ones, what sort of amp hourage might there be in eight of these little nuggets?

Any thoughts, suggestions or ideas of how I could get a life are gratefuly accepted.
 
Hi, Martin, for what it's worth, I power my Garmin Streetpilot (on the boat) using 6 AA cells and they last about 10 hours, so if anyone knows how much power that uses, it might provide an indication of capacity and/or endurance.
 
Could be very useful on the boat . Led anchor light possibly but you would have to check it's power consumption. I made the mistake of buying a camping lantern from Maplin. Uses far too much power. Portable radios, hand held vhf, shaver, not so sure about the main VHF so check its power consumption on receive, small torches and anything else that uses AAs but not things with very low consumption like clocks. Camera. Led tricolour may be a possibility but again you would have to check its power consumption.

You don't say what the batteries are if NiCds may be only 800mAh capacity but NiMH could be up to from1300 to 2100, 2500 or even the latest are 2700mAh. Usually they are marked.

Remember none of them holds a charge all that well compared with alkalines which have a shelf life of a couple of years. NiMH are said to have less of a "memory effect than NiCds.

A charger that runs off the ships 12 battery would be useful!
 
Martin, If you use it with NiCd/NiMH 1.15 x 8 = 9.2V on load 1.25 x 8 = 10V on charge. You'll need a special charger, or make one up, or charge them individually. What can you do with 10V........

It would make a replacement for a PP3 9V battery, if you put a flying socket on it and plug your 9V equipment into it. Much more energy than the normal, highly expensive rechargeable PP3s.
 
Probably not relevant but I have got from Maplin a very handy little plastic container which holds 10 AA batteries. I put rechargable NiMHs at 1.2 volts each in this to power up a 12 volt portable chart plotter when I am playing around with it at home.
 
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Probably not relevant but I have got from Maplin a very handy little plastic container which holds 10 AA batteries.

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Thats exactly what I was on about! /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

It is just a holder, 8 at 1.5v is 12v. It takes ordinary disposable AAs which I use all over the boat anyway.

So it seems the amp hourage of a quality AA like Duracel is 2.5, I shall see what the VHF and LEDs use....
 
I'd use it to stop the gps switching off when you start the engine- A couple of diodes shoud do the trick, if you have a gps like mine that switches off at about 7.8V!
 
If it is one of those cheap black AA battery holders then I wouldn't put it anywhere near a boat. They have very poor reliability as the steel springs and eyelets rust very quickly. 10 batteries equals 20 connections each likely to be dodgy.

Anyway as stated for 12 volt system 10 Nicad/NiMh batteries are required. 8 cells is OK for non rechargeable akaline cells to give 12v.

The cells could be used for a LED anchor light or cabin light. And might run the radio in transmit for long enough for emergency.

good luck olewill
 
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