Heatermeter on battery success!


 
Wish I'd kept one of the buoy batteries we use to use, they would power a car radio for 10 years..........called long paks, 12v and weighed 95 pounds and where 3 ft long.
 
There is something odd there, those batteries say 1.2V, though a AA battery should be 1.5V? I thought perhaps it was just a typo, but it is repeated several times on the Amazon page, and several other retailers say they are 1.2V as well? If that is the case you would need 10 of them to reach 12V, not 8 like a typical AA battery.
IDK how or why those batteries would be 1.2V and be called AA batteries? This has got me stumped....
 
Ralph, this is actually pretty common. Rechargeable AA size batteries have always been 1.2V since the NiCad days. Most electronics can handle the difference, but there obviously are going to be some things that can't.
 
I never noticed that about rechargeables... At any rate, my point was 8 X 1.2V = 9.6V, not 12V. I guess that just means the blower will run slower at 100% output, 'cause I can't think of anything else that uses 12V in the HM.
 
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Now you know why things like drill batteries were always in multiples of 1.2 ie: 7.2v, 9.6v, 18v

Brings me back to my RC car days, making up my own 7.2v packs that would last a whole 12 minutes :)
 
That link loads 3 pages of items for me?

At any rate, any 12V battery will "work", it just depends on how many Amp Hours it can provide how long it will last.

Aaron posted that he did a 12h cook with a 17Ah battery but didn't indicate it had run dry or estimate how much charge it had left, Bryan said he ran a 14hr cook on a 8Ah battery, so 17 is overkill for sure.

So it seems around 8Ah capacity will do for a long low and slow, though Bryan didnt say he ran the 8Ah dry either so maybe smaller would work too.

He did say the HM draws about 1/4A with the blower full tilt, so 4 hours would be 1Ah (full tilt), you could use that as a rough guide of how many Ah you may need. Seems like around 4-5Ah would probably be good for most cooks.

EDIT: Subtract three zeros from mAh to get Ah

Example:

10,000mAh = 10Ah
 
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Here's what I use. I know it's overkill, but I bought it for a camp fridge I use, and it works like a charm. I've done back to back brisket cooks (36 hour total) and had no issues. It has a 44 Ah 12v battery.

I have no outdoor electrical outlets, so this monster does the trick

Z2Bd9Q6.jpg
 
WBegg said:
Here's what I use. I know it's overkill, but I bought it for a camp fridge I use, and it works like a charm. I've done back to back brisket cooks (36 hour total) and had no issues. It has a 44 Ah 12v battery.

I have no outdoor electrical outlets, so this monster does the trick

Z2Bd9Q6.jpg
Click to expand...

That's awesome. I've been toying with adding a gas powered generator to my trailer smoker but I think something like this will be perfect.
 
Tom Kole said:
That's awesome. I've been toying with adding a gas powered generator to my trailer smoker but I think something like this will be perfect.
Click to expand...

The're pretty common here in the "land down under", but there are cheaper options. Before I bought this, I was looking at this. Just add your own battery (car battery of your choosing). http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/PROJECTA-BATTERY-BOX-12V-PORTABLE-POWER-STATION-P-BPE330-/111292946202?hash=item19e993971a:m:mto3uCrgTlhNz1H4ShuikWg
 
Since I'm an RC freak, I decided to do a simple test with a moderate discharge LiPO battery. The one in the pic is a Turnigy 3s (3 cell) 5.2 Ah battery. At full charge, it puts out 4.2 volts a cell for a total of 12.6V. I did the test through the HM running the fan at 20% (simulating a cook), and I got tired after 8 hours. At that time, the total voltage was at 11.4 volts, and I think I could have run it for another hour.

Although good, users beware. The little LED box to the North of the picture is a low voltage alarm. If the cells run below say ... 3.3V (give or take a few 0.1s) then the battery is pretty much toast. It will never charge correctly, and will lose alot of life. Also, LiPOs are VERY dangerous if punctured. They will gas out and cause enough heat to cook a Brisket in 5 minutes.

All warning aside, I think I could put 2 of these in parallel and get a good 18-20 hour cook out of it.

PyTF7nW.jpg
 
Testing an old 12v 15Ah battery that charged up ok and held a resting voltage of 12.3v

It's been running the HM with fan at 100% and LCD at full brightness for almost 16 hours now.

gewv5fRl.png
 
I've had a success with a Turnigy Lipo 4S with BEC (voltage regulator) and much less weight than an SLA battery ( 1 Kg vs 5 Kg). Did an 18 hour cook, and had a bit to spare using the adapt-a-damper.

Here's the links to what I used.

4S 16Ah Lipo
BEC (Voltage Regulator)
Voltage alarm (to monitor each battery cell)

The voltage alarm is very important, in that you never want to run down a Lipo cell below it's "recharchable" voltage. For each cell, that's about 3.2V. The alarm listed has a user setting where it alarms (quite loudly) if any cell goes below the set voltage.

Of course, you'll need a way to charge a lipo battery. Search Hobbyking for a solution. They're cheap and plentiful.
 
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