Leisure Battery

[Boyleyuk]

All,

I'm looking at this battery to power my Celestron Slt 127 Mak with original alt/az mount.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Leisure-Battery-12v-110Ah-Lucas-LX31MF/dp/B0039TEDVQ/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top

However at some point when the £££ allows i will be upgrading to the heq 5 GOTO mount so from what I've read on here that battery should sort me out for both.

Accessories

http://www.amazon.co.uk/TRIXES-Battery-Cigarette-Lighter-Adaptor/dp/B005G39HLY/ref=pd_sim_auto_7

http://www.firstlightoptics.com/power/skytron-power-supply-cable-for-skywatcher-celestron-mounts.html

I have a laptop and a meade dsi 2 colour camera, but rather than complicate things I'm going to buy a second battery for that which both battery's should serve me about 5hours.

Appreciate peoples opinions on this

regards

[jonathan]

Looks good. The SkyTron cable has an in-line fuse in case of any shorts (without the fuse things could get hot and burn quite quickly if there's a short circuit). The clips look OK, I bought a similar set from Motosave which has an in-line fuse.

Consider a heavy duty battery charger to go with it, I have a Ring charger, perhaps a little overkill but it makes me happy to know it's a good 'un, also does a pretty good job of reconditioning old or drained lead-acid batteries.

Could save some postage / waiting by buying all of these items from Halfords or Motosave though, plus you get to see just how big and heavy a 110Ah Leisure battery is.

[CraigT82]

That 110Ah battery is a big heavy lump to lug around... will be getting on for 20kgs I imagine! A leisure battery is definitely a good idea though as they're designed to be repeatedly discharged and recharged. Your laptop will need an inverter to change the 12v to 230v.

I think a HEQ5 draws about 2 amps and your laptop even less, so that battery would run them for a lot more than 5 hours!

Craig

[Carl Reade]

Hi, no need for a second battery the leisure will run all. For the laptop if it needs charging whilst in use, buy a 12V laptop charger. Just count the amount of Watts your equipment will use (camera and laptop) then divide that figure by 12. That will give you the amount of amps they will use and add 2 Amps for the mount.

When you have that figure divide 110 by it that will give you the amount of time you can run for.

For example if you were draining 5 Amps from a 110Ah battery you could run for 22 hours.

But never run the battery to total drain (not good for them)

Hopefully that helps, Carl

[Boyleyuk]

Guys thanks for the replies, very helpful