At 06:14 AM 12/29/98 -0800, Roger wrote: The advent of the digital camera has created suficient demand >that a new class of rechargeable is available at "reasonable" cost. NiMH >(Nickel Metal Hydride, or if you prefer, National Institutes for Mental >Health) batteries have about 50% more capacity than NiCads, and can be >recharged indefinitely at rates of up to .5C. For example, the capacity >of an AA NiMH is about 1400 maH (milliamp-hours) and can be recharged at >700ma in about 2 hours. They live for over 1000 cycles and the cost has >got down to $2.50 each in qty 10 from mail-order sources. NiCad chargers >work fine with NiMH cells. > >Also available is a charger that accepts 12 - 19 volts input and works >with your car's cigar lighter or with 18v solar panels. I'm still >researching the available hardware, so I won't post sources until I've >tried them personally, but if you search with "solar battery charger", >"NiMH", and "photovoltaic", you'll see what's out there. > >Roger, in North Plains, Hey Roger, These new NiMH batteries sound like they have tremendous sea-going potential. One question: do you happen to know what happens if they get salt water wet? I ask because I used to carry Lithium batteries, tremendously expensive but very long-lasting (plus I theorized I could swallow a couple to control those violent mood-swings-). I used them for longer crossings in the GPS, to avoid having to change batteries at sea, and was planning to get some as a back-up set for the VHF. Then I read that Lithium batteries can become explosive if exposed to brine. I don't think we're talking blow-off-your-hand or sink-your-boat impact here, but I imagine they could destroy the appliance, especially since the gaskets on GPSs or VHFs would tend to hold pressure in. So even though both my GPS and VHF are rated waterproof, and I carry them in waterproof baggies as well, the idea that both levels of protection might fail, or that I might have to change batteries at sea, and slop in a little brine in the course of this, has turned me off Lithium. So what, I wonder is the situation with NiMH? Cheers, Philip T. **************************************** Mountain Equipment Co-op 1655 West 3rd Avenue, Vancouver, BC, Canada V6J 1K1 Tel: 640-732-1989 Fax: 604-731-6483 email: pid_at_mec.ca Visit our website at: http://www.mec.ca ***************************************** *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net Website: http://www.gasp-seakayak.net/paddlewise/ ***************************************************************************Received on Tue Dec 29 1998 - 10:02:58 PST
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