I'm going to need some help, for the solar scooter project I'm doing in Mad Science I need to develop a battery system. I've heard that lead acid batteries while able to hold lots of power aren't good for frequent charging and recharging so I've decided to go with NiCd batteries that I can get on the cheap. So now I have a variety of different NiCd batteries and I need to know how I can connect them all together to make a larger battery pack. I also need to make it so that they can power this motor.

Unite Motor-Model My1016
Voltage; 24VDC
Rated Current :13.7 A
Rated Speed:2650 RPM
Output:250 W
Unite Motor model My1016

And can slowly be recharged by a solar panel, but one system at a time. I'd really appreciate any information people could lend as to how I should pick out these batteries from the pile I have, hooking them up in parallel and serial, and making them into a larger battery pack. Here is the link to the project that this is going with if it helps.

http://www.lumenlab.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=20741

Please respond if you have some insight to this, any discussion will help me towards my goal.

have a look here. They have Nicad and NiMH batteries you can make your own pack and they have chargers available. they have 14AH F cells and 10AH d cells http://www.all-battery.com/index.asp?PageA...mp;Category=166

Thanks, that's a big help. The thing is I have a bunch of NiCd batteries already as part of a grab bag from American Science and surplus. The question is now that I have them how do I test them to get an understanding of their properties and how to you wire them up into a battery pack. If I can get that much I'll probably go for a commercial charger.