It ain't a SBD job, but its "done"- water bottle battery pack

well it ain't totally done,but you get the idea.
I had a bunch of bent out and worn out stainless bicycle water bottle cages (painted black for god-knows-why, turns out they fit the gap between two of the screw holes for the Humminbird fish finder- so, replace the finder sheet metal screws with bolts and the bottle cage fit perfectly. I sliced a 'hatch' in a crappy water bottle, in goes the 10 AA holder. Slice off the 'nipple' on the top of the water bottle and the power wire passes through. I added a new cable clam- i had been running the cables through the hatch for the last three years.

i still need to dremel off the screw ends, secure the battery and GPS cable up against the cage, and "glue stitch" the transducer cable to hull...that should give me a straight shot at knocking out the transducer with a rod tip (LOL).

nice job steve, and great way to recycle old parts, cameron

Gee , now I know why you are such a quirky guy. Just kidding Steve-o. I'l bet you have a plethura of water bottles around your pad. Wanna try it out at Muir on Saturday?

supposedly i am heading up to tahoe on sat, but let me see what time-- perhaps i can run over there for a couple of hours.

BTW: I actually finished now- gone are teh screw ends, re-did the cables so they're prettier...and about 1/2 done with the gluing of the cables.


and yes, i've got TONS of bike junk hanging around...water bottles, cages, wheels, cranks, you name it (probably even a few bikes)

I like the cage.  There are actually some cool prefab water bottle batteries out there and this post is tickling my curiosity!

Sean:  EXACTLY....

I was looking at some, and my ancient nightrider lights are 12v and need replacement batteries... Like this one:

http://www.batteryspace.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=2215

I had the 10 AA thing, so tossed it in, next is to replace that with a pre-made jobbie

my ancient nightrider lights are 12v and need replacement batteries...

I have the same Nightrider system for my mountain bike but they banned off-road riding in Santa Clara County a few years back so now I just use it on the street at night.

I was thinking the same things a couple of weeks ago but I didn't go with it. Glad you gave it a try. MacGyver would definitely make a great NCKA member.

Dude Steve! This is a sweet design—very creative AND useful. Plus, now I know what to do with that purple-anodized Ringle waterbottle holder from 1995! Now if I could just figure out some way to utilize that matching purple Chris King headset haha!
Kidding aside, that’s good work man. Thanks for sharing!
PK

Like the water bottle idea, I gotta find a way to ditch the power wheels batt. that I'm using now, too heavy. thanks.

I gotta find a way to ditch the power wheels batt. that I'm using now, too heavy.

As in alpine mountaineering, light is right in kayak fishing as well. Sean (SBD) lead the way with his New School Battery breakthrough. But it is tougher and tougher to meet the amp-hour needs of the newer sonar/GPS combos with them. For example: the 580 Humminbird I am putting in my T-15 draws nearly 500 mAh meaning those 2500 mAh AAs would last 5 hours maximum which is not a long fishing day at all. We need a battery breakthrough.

you can just go up to C size -- 10 Cs are still lighter than a lead acid

you can just go up to C size -- 10 Cs are still lighter than a lead acid

I thought about that a few years ago when I first went with 4Ah Lead-acid gel cells which feel like they weigh a ton--the 7Ah is like carrying a lead brick in the kayak.
But at the time, I was unable to locate sufficient capacity NiMH C cells in terms of Amp-hours. Maybe that has changed in that the interent is making it a lot easier to find relatively rare tech out there.  I'd like that since charging 10-12 AA batteries is a complex task of battery and charger management. I've been considering linking up enough cells in series to charge with the 12v gel cell charger and then putting two of those in parallel to double the amperage or building a custom charger for say 18V-20 worth of NiMH AAs or Cs--been a while since I laid out components on a board and soldered.

Li-on would be the way to go as that technology provides the greatest charge per weight of any available today. But they are pricey: a 148V 4400mAh Li-on array is $99. Plus you'll need a custom charger for that voltage.

Never mind: I found this one below but the batteries are still steep...
http://www.batteryjunction.com/p4em-3830.html

Shimmy is on this.  I got a sneak peak at his new 4.2 Ah pack that ways less then a pound...its sooOOOoo Shimmy...aka very nice.

What about these Lipo batteries, like Porky uses. I checked out his setup and it seemed to be a great combo of lightweight and power. Any thoughts? I really need to 'ditch the brick.'
http://www.norcalkayakanglers.com/index.php/topic,18841.0.html

What about these Lipo batteries, like Porky uses. I checked out his setup and it seemed to be a great combo of lightweight and power. Any thoughts? I really need to 'ditch the brick.'

Battery technology is moving along. Battery manufacturers have been experimenting with Li-on cathode composition to get away from the cobalt in the original design. The reason was that high current draws in a malfunctioning power circuit on a laptop resulted significantly reduced battery life and even in fires in extreme cases. So word of warning--make sure you put a fuse in series with Li-on batteries--a hot plastic-melting fire in your kayak a mile out in the Big Blue would be very bad ju-ju (as Sean would say).

Which, coincidently, is also why I will always waterproof my battery--saltwater across the terminals can cause such a short. Imagine dumping in the surf on the way out and then having a fire break out just as you get outside the surf zone. The fire can typically happen if the discharge current goes significantly past the amp-hour rating. So for Porky's 2400mAh (2.4 Ah) set up it would be 2.4 amps so he should put in a 1 or 2 amp fuse--1 amp is safer. No small sounder should draw even close to 1 amp. The 580 sounder/GPS draws 475 mA RMS (RMS is the average current since there are peaks during sounding and GPS radio activity). But while a fuse protects against the electronics failure, salt water can still short the terminals of the power source and the fuse won't protect you. I will seal them up from now on.

BTW, a LiPo 5000mAh 14.8V costs $359!!!! I am sticking with less expensive Li-on for now.