NiCad Battery help

[Hank]

I'm in a position of being able to get a NiCad battery to the tune of 1000 amp hour capacity. Currently I'm using lead acid types.

Question I have is does anybody know the suitability of NiCads for off grid applications using wind and solar for charging?

What special requirements are there?

What about "memory" of these batteries and how do you go about maintaining them.

Though I can get these batteries for free disposing of them will cost me if they don't work out.

On the flip side I can also get lead-acid 8D type batteries for free.

Which would be a better choice?

Thanks for any help and advice,

Hank

[RobD]

NiCads are more tempermental. They have to be charged at a lower rate than lead acids. They have a memory and charging all those batteries together would create problems also.

I'd go with lead acids.

RobD

[muppethex]

Check how many charge/discharge cycles the batteries are good for.

A normal car battery might only give you 5-6 charges from empty before

breaking.. they're not meant to be completely discharged and I have a feeling

lead-acids generally don't have as long life as ni-cds.

If you're going to be fully discharging them the ni-cd memory effect should not be such a problem.

I'd suggest looking for the spec sheet on the net for both types and reading it to see what they are recommended for.

[wpowokal]

Hank I too was offered a bank (110V)of used ni-cads but once I checked out the disposal cost $6.50 Australian per kilo! no thanks.

Dispite them being usable, albiet as others have said they are somewhat more pidantic but for that disposal cost new lead acids look mighty good.

And from my knowledge you could not run ni-cads and lead acids together (they have different personellities) so unless you had one bank as a standby it would limit your options for future expansion.

regards Allan

[Hank]

Thanks to all for your comments/advice I really appreciate it.

Did more research and feel the lead-acid would be the better route to go as well. NiCads of that size would be to tempromental to maintain and in my opinion not worth the effort.

Thanks again,

Hank