Motor bike battery

corkonian1

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Joined
26 Jun 2002
Messages
113
Location
Ireland
www.mirroroffshore.eu.tt
I have a car battery charged by an outboard, also a few 1.5w solar cells.The battery is kaput.Would a little motor bike battery be a better replacement,I use power only for vhf and transistor radio, or (any farmers here), battery used on electric fences. or any suggestions.
 
You can buy 12v 7 a/h batteries from Maplins and others.

Cost varies but I think Maplins price is in the region of £10-£15.

Would do what you want, and a tiny footprint!

They are used for Alarm systems etc, we have adapted our survey instrument leads to them.
 
It depends what your primary KPIs are - do you want easy to charge, low discharge, small and light, or do you want cheap?
My BMW has a lot of electrical demands (apart from starting with cylinders of over 500 cc each, it has electronic injection, alarm, tracker, heated handlebars, heated clothes, ABS, traction control, permanent fog lights, sat nav, alarm, tracker etc) but only has room for a tiny battery. It's a drycell AGM one so can go at any angle and seems to cope well with the huge demands, but is pricey at nearly £90. See here . They also have some cheaper, small batteries further down the page.
 
Try Rapid Electronis, they do a big range of trraction batteries at prices that make the likes of Maplin's eyes water, and their delivery is good.
 
Motor bike batteries have to have high cold cranking amps and accept a high charging rate so not so good for deep discharge.

Look at batteries for electric wheelchairs, lighting stanby and the like.

If price is the issue just get the cheapest lead acid battery you can find as if you can keep the battery well charged winter and summer there won't be much difference.
 
I've been using a 12 volt 7 ah. sealed battery from Screwfix for 6/7 years now. It's charged by a solar panel and runs two 21 watt lights in some stables. Cost ca. £12.
 
Electric bicycles use small 12 volt rechargeable batteries in series. Available from bicycle shops or a well known auction web site
 
And their pricing structure made it worth my while to find Rapid Electronics whose traction small batteries are the same form fit and funtion but a lot cheaper.

Bikes that use lead acid batteries tend to use standard UPS batteries
 
Ee when I were a lad, I rode me BSA C11G 100 miles to work every day through Winter.
Before Global Warming, heated grips? Pah, I ad wooly mits wi fingers stickin aht t break icicles off me nose. /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif
 
You were lucky. My waterproofs (huh!) were so bad, I 'ad ter break icicles off the inside 'fore I could get them on! Luxury. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif
 
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A lot of motorbikes run in 6v electrics, and are quite small. Buying 2 would probably eliminate cost savings over buying a small 12v battery

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By golly that dates you! As someone has already said "life on Mars", /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

Lots of things kill batteries and one of them is leaving them discharged or with a very low charge. So yes - any 12v battery with a lower capacity but still big enough to do the job. If you reckon on needing an hours transmit time ( imagine an emergency when you need rescuing) out of a VHF that is 25 AH. Maybe 40AH to allow a margin - which is a very big bike battery, So maybe you need to upgrade your charging arrangements.

In the end the VHF is safety kit not a marine telephone so you dont want to cut things too fine.
 
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