a rechargeable battery experiment…

[Magnum Man62 177]

so the cheapest part of my big pasture fencing project, has been to add solar fence lights to the top rail… this is almost 3/4 of a mile of fencing ( 2 pens running the length of our driveway ) the lights are each 2 fencing panels apart, at 32 feet… on full sunny days the lights come on at dusk, and stay on until the batteries are dead, usually 2-3:00 in the morning… the lights are just a single small led bulb, and each light contains a single rechargeable AA battery, my concern , is the winter months, of extended darkness, and the cold performance of the typical rechargeable batteries, with “ normal” rechargeable batteries being Nicad, or nickel metal hydrate, both of which suffer huge performance issues in below freezing temperatures… I ran a test of a group of lithium ion batteries, that are listed as normal use in extreme cold ( well below zero degrees ) and are listed as having several times the charged battery life, of those listed above… now, these lights shine bright until they turn off because of the sun rising, in the morning, even with the extended darkness… on cloudy, or rainy days the solar cell doesn’t fully charge the batteries, and the non lithium only shine for 3-5 hours of darkness the lithium batteries having longer charge life, stay on longer, on those cloudy or rainy days…

I’ve been trying to get away from using disposable batteries, but do have several battery back up air pumps ( just to keep this thread mildly fish related ), and having batteries with as long a charge, ( lithium seems to last similar to the non rechargeable alkaline batteries, and as long a use life as possible…

they are a pain to find sometimes, in the smaller battery sizes, but seem to be well worth it, in comparison to the commonly available rechargeable batteries…

 

[Back in the fold16 2]

Batteries . Nothing kills a battery faster than cold and I don’t think they’ll ever jump that hurdle . I was running with my cell phone in my pocket when my wife was still alive during a cold day and I had it in my pocket where it should have been warm . It displayed a message that basically said “ tilt “ . The thing was too cold .
I wonder about electric cars in the cold . I’m willing to bet the folks in Frostbite Falls don’t drive them and what about the heater ? Generating heat electrically with a battery just has to be a fantastic draw on power .

 

[GaryE23 21]

Tis the season when we consider Christmas or winter string lights, in this culture. Mine are on solar batteries and while they don't last many seasons, they do stay on from 4:30 in the afternoon til about 5 or 6 in the morning out back at when it hits -20. That is, if the day has been sunny.

I have solar motion detector spotlights, and they have worked for several years, and still do, even in the hard cold.