advice on battery recommendations.

I have k9 finished but im not sure what batteries i should use in him. i was going to wire up some 12v batteries in parallel if needed.
It runs on 2 x 12v drill motors and a 10a sabertooth, i have about 30 x 12v flashing leds, and also a 7 digital photo frame which is also 12v.

I will be using a pro peak supernova charger for recharging but want to get a decent driving around time of about 30 mins (not continuous).

He has moving ears, head and tail but these are not running constantly, just when i want to operate them,

He has 2 removable links, one for drive and one for everything else. I would like to leave him on display with everything working except having the motors connected.

not sure if i should be using nimh or sla??? the least i can charge him the better ideally, but want something to use with the supernova.

i guess this is a puzzling question :cry:

either nimh or sla should be fine as i doubt the photo frame and leds will draw much current. a high amperage sla or nimh should be more than capable of supplying the amount of power required for 30 mins+. nimhs have the advantage of weighing less and charging faster although are more expensive than sla's. if you have the cash i'd go for nimhs but if you don't want to spend that much and k9 can support the extra weight of sla's and you aren't too fussed about having a charging time of an hour or less then go for sla's. :)

I would just put the biggest SLA you can fit in, easiest to charge, as your probably going to need more than 5Ah, in which case your going to end up with multiple NiMh packs, i would just have one SLA.

I agree with Alan,

Pilgrim uses 2*12Ah SLA batteries so I can have 24v for speed (series) or 12v for endurance (Parallel).

If you are using just the lights head movement ETC then you can expect 1 * 12Ah SLA should last a long time.
If the current load is low they seem to go on discharging close to the 8-12Ah, so 1 amp load 8 hrs use.
Cheep to buy and easy to charge, when I use Pilgrim I have one set on charge and the other in the robot plus a spare set.
The only thing I would say is make the battery easy to remove, so swaps are no big deal.

thanks for the advice, i will go with a sla, weight and size is no problem whatsoever.
Something like this??

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/YUASA-NP24-12I-Se ... 2a10e13548