"New School" power supply upgrade!

After having power failures on a couple of my far and few trips I decided to upgrade my power supply.
My lead acids have crapped out  and my "new school" was a little light on the capacity for the new color FF.

After looking at the options a rechargeable Lifepo battery seemed like the best choice.
  Around the same weight but 4x the life of a comparable size Nimh.  10x the life, 1/2 the weight, and 30% more capacity then the pictured lead acid.
Heres a side by side pic.


Heres a pic of the parts I used. A pelican box to protect the electronics in the battery pack. A wire seal to get the waterproof "trail tech" plug to the outside of the box. Also a fuse to honor the FF warranty.


Heres a close up of the o-ringed connecters made for bicycle headlights. They are supposed to be good for 2ft. underwater.


After a little exacto trimming and step drill action the parts all fitted and ready to hook together. I cheated and used the silicone filled twist-on connectors for easy assembly/disassembly.


Finished battery pack ready for install.


On the FF connector I staggered the solder joints , coated them with brush on insulation then slid the waterproof shrink tube on. Heres the pack mounted in the "Pod" tray, but I might hang it forward underneath the "Sonar shield"area.


Now if I can get out and do some more beta testing........
The waterproofness was tested in a less than graceful underwater surf exit at a MLPA site

Thank you very much for sharing fishshim on the battery upgrade. I have been
doing some research myself on how to cut back on battery weight. Although I love
the many days of fishing without charging the battery in between, it is just to
heavy to be carrying around. It is the Cabelas 12v 8amp.

Thanks again,
Jedmo

What's the recharge set-up?

What's the recharge set-up?

Batteries and chargers are available from www.batteryspace.com

For this battery (12v NiMH), choose the appropriate charger (battery type & voltage), put the corrresponding connector on it..  done.

man, that is clean work shimmy.

What is the voltage you get outta it?

Allen

that will be my next set up when my brick got to shit......

Nice work, Shim.  Thanks for sharing it.   

What's the recharge set-up?

Mike the supplier has a smart charger that plugs right in to the pack.Its a different plug but it fits and works.http://www.batteryspace.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=4412

man, that is clean work shimmy.

What is the voltage you get outta it?

Allen

Allen the voltage is 12.8 volts and 4.05amps, it should power my Hummer383 for 9-10 hrs.

Nice work!   

fishshim,

Looks great! Where did you get the bit parts including the battery pack? What is the approximate total assembled cost?

Thanks,
Jeff (a.k.a. Steelerhead)

thanks Shim, that seems like plenty of power.......and the 383 is exactly what I need to get the juice to.

Allen

Really clean work! Great job as always Shimmy.

Z

Nice work brother.  Looking forawrd to building mine.

beautiful....now I know what battery will end up in my bottle holder.

Hi FishShim:

            What is the part Number for the Lipo cells?
                                                                 Thanks
                                                                 Ernie