>(wait, just how efficient are those itty bitty consumer-grade 100W inverters these days, anyhow?)
Pretty darned efficient. I used a 350 watt inverter to power a laptop and external hard drive used as a music player on long drives. After several hours, the laptop was warm and the hard drive almost too hot to touch. (I need to find a place for it that has better air flow) The inverter was cool to the touch.
I've seen 2.5 AH NiMh name brand AA cells for $1 each, when Amazon has a special. I bought a bunch of 2.6AH AA cells from allbattery.com (via their ebay store), for about $1 each, but they test at about 2AH.
Car batteries are really bad in deep cycle service. 2 or 3 cycles can kill them. If you use lead acid, it's much better to use a sealed, deep cycle (marine), or golf cart type battery.
One more thing: Modern NiMh cells should be close to fully charged after two weeks. There's even a new type that has a low enough self-discharge rate that they are advertised as being usable right out of the package, without charging!
(no subject)
Pretty darned efficient. I used a 350 watt inverter to power a laptop and external hard drive used as a music player on long drives. After several hours, the laptop was warm and the hard drive almost too hot to touch. (I need to find a place for it that has better air flow) The inverter was cool to the touch.
I've seen 2.5 AH NiMh name brand AA cells for $1 each, when Amazon has a special. I bought a bunch of 2.6AH AA cells from allbattery.com (via their ebay store), for about $1 each, but they test at about 2AH.
Car batteries are really bad in deep cycle service. 2 or 3 cycles can kill them. If you use lead acid, it's much better to use a sealed, deep cycle (marine), or golf cart type battery.
(no subject)
http://amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw/104-7181070-1626342?initialSearch=1&url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=Eneloop&Go.x=0&Go.y=0&Go=Go