12volt battery for EQ6

[HarryD (Greg)]

Hi All

Looks as though a trip to the west of Sydney will be required for the transit on Wednesday. I've already organised to be "sick" at work

However, I have never had the need to power my EQ6 with a battery but if I go west I'll need one.

What would you recommend?

Thanks

Harry

[MrB (Simon)]

Back when I had an EQ6 I did some testing:
It draws ~0.5A when idle, just after powering on. (Alignment on screen)
~1.5A with both axis slewing(no-load), and ~0.75A when tracking(no-load).

While the mount was slewing I loaded it up with my hands(as hard as I could) and it peaked at around 2.2A.
I would guess a well balanced mount would be drawing similar to the no-load figures.

So.... multiply those figures by the number of hours you reckon you'll be using it in a session, then go from there.
Don't forget to get long life(years, not session length ) from a Lead-acid battery, you want to discharge it as shallow as possible.
If we say, for example, 1A average draw, over 5 hour session, then 5Ah capacity would be used from the battery. If you wanted the battery to be discharged no more than 30% DOD, then: 1/0.3*5 = 16.67 so a battery around 20Ah should be fine.

[whzzz28 (Nathan)]

The cheap: http://www.supercheapauto.com.au/onl...spx?pid=283446

The not so cheap: Deep-cycle battery.

Do you have a cigarette lighter cable? My HEQ5 was supplied with one, not sure on the EQ6. If you do have one then the battery pack will be a simple plug-and-play. Should get you through the transit with some power to spare. And if your not going to use it often, then most defiantly go with the cheap.