Looking for a solar charger for 14 Volt Li-Ion Battery used for heart pump

melanie

Hi, I am searching for a solar charger for a heart pump. The person using the pump only has 24 hours worth of batteries. If the power goes out for longer than that, he is dead. I did a search, but did not find any solar charger for this. I would appreciate any information anyone can provide on charing with solar as a back-up. The battery is a Thoratec Heartmate II 14 volt Li-Ion battery. The heart pump is made by Thorotec. It's hard to find out much about the battery on line. I've searched their site, and can't find anything. http://www.omnimedics.cz/produkty/thoratec-heartmate

westbranch

Re: Looking for a solar charger for 14 Volt Li-Ion Battery used for heart pump

Your best option,IMHO, in the interim, until Thorotec can give you advice on what charge parameters need to be supplied to the critical battery, would be to get a small 110V style inverter and some true deep cycle batteries as backup. If this is an immediate need, I have to assume a small Honda or Yamaha 1000W or 2000W inverter type portable generator will work.

Do you have a charger that plugs into 110V house voltage?

hth

techntrek

Re: Looking for a solar charger for 14 Volt Li-Ion Battery used for heart pump

+1 on the generator. You need redundancy. I don't usually recommend non-inverter gensets, but I'm recommending you get 2. Noise and fuel consumption aren't your primary problems in this case, and you can buy 2 for redundancy for far less than 1 good inverter-genset. Get something in the 3000 watt range, which will let you power a window air conditioner which may be necessary to reduce stress on your friend on a 100 degree day. Get two different brands - if you go out and buy two of the same from the same shelf, if one has a problem out of the box the other one could have the same problem. Plus get four 5-gallon gas cans and a large bottle of Stabil, then fill them up.

mike95490

Re: Looking for a solar charger for 14 Volt Li-Ion Battery used for heart pump

tap into an 18v dewalt tool battery for charging ? It's a life critical medical device, and very few business will want to touch it. Honda would get sued if their generator was recharging the pump, and lightning hit the phone lines and fried your friend while on the phone. Lawyers go everywhere.

I can say what I did for my CPAP portable power (automotive jump pack) but I can't suggest you use one for your medical device.