6v battery for powered EQ3, EQ5

[Cosmic Geoff]

Maplin have a 6 volt 4.5AH sealed lead-acid battery on offer at the moment - code L21AC, reduced from £16.99 to £7.99.

That's the cost of 4 sets of primary D cells from a pound store, so I bought one. You'd also need to make up a battery lead and source a charger.  It ought to be ideal, but if it isn't I'll let you all know. 

Before seeing this item, I was thinking of making up a battery pack with five of the ubiquitous AA rechargeables. Did anyone try that?

[DHEB]

Hi! Last year, when I bought my SW 200 PDS with an EQ5 mount I saw that flimsy 4 D battery pack and immediately decided to replace it with something that has better chances to endure hours of guiding in the Swedish winter. I bought a sealed lead-acid rechargeable battery with 12 Ah current capacity. It has never disappointed me and I would recommend this solution, although a 7.2 Ah I guess will do the job just as well. The rationale of my decision can be found in this post:

Battery consumption by EQ5 equatorial mount with dual axis motors: results of a simple experiment

Cheers and good luck

/H.

[Waldemar]

If you use ten D rechargable cells in parallel/ series , you have alot moere capacity (6V ± 10 Ah) and with a little ingenuity you can use them as counterweight and have no power cable running from your mount...

[Bizibilder]

Rechargeable is the way to go - cost alone should be enough to persuade you.  With my own EQ5 I made up a box with the battery in and have a power lead, charger terminals and on/off switch.  Just to be posh I also fitted a voltmeter so I can easily keep an eye on the state of the battery.  The whole thing cost less then two sets of "D" cells and had been in use for about four years of winter Solar imaging.  I do keep the battery box indoors in the warm and also keep it fully charged.