Anyone know a good source of large 12V car batteries or am I better to use big 6V batteries? Any ideas of where to look for wind power kits or DIY solutions?
If you're going to be charging and discharging the battery repeatedly then you probably want a 'deep cycle' battery rather than a car battery. They're designed for repeatedly being charged and discharged, as opposed to car batteries which will die after being dischargd a couple of times (but are designed to handle the high current draw of the car's starter motor).
Of course if you get really bored you can build a solar powered car and drive it from Darwin to Adelaide :) We ran a PowerBook 5300 off a 240V inverter during the whole trip. It's probably cheaper to buy an inverter and use the iBook's normal adapter than to purchase a specific PowerBook supply that runs off 12V (of course if you're going to be travelling and want to use it on the plane or something you're better off with the custom PowerBook supply). You can also run a couple of other 240V appliances off the inverter as well...
You may find that some of the cheapo car adapters from Dick Smith etc. can't provide enough current for your laptop, they normally need to be able to supply about 45W (24V at 1.875 Amps) or so. And you don't know how smooth an output they provide to your (relatively expensive) laptop.
You can get car iBook/PowerBook adapters from <http://www.madsonline.com/> but you may be able to do better locally.
Have fun, Shay --
