Neil, I'm working on a water pond with a waterfall. I want the pump
to run off of batteries charged by 12VDC as well as a solar panel. I
have decided on sealed lead-acid batteries. While this is still very
preliminary, I'll be using a PIC for control. I'm sure I'll have a lot
of questions about PWM control later this spring. I'll be glad to share
my work.

   - Tom

At 01:32 PM 2/16/98 -0500, you wrote:
>This summer I'm going to be working on a project with a multi-drop
>network of PICs connected to a Linux box. The network cable will
>be about 75 long. Some of the devices will be out in a garden shed and
>I would like to power them off a Ni-Cad battery/Solar battery
>combination
>I'm wondering if a switcher setup would be more effecient (I'm worried
>about the Ni-Cad). Any comments, ideas, pointers (I love pointers :-} )?
>
>I'm also looking for easy to find parts (1sy-2sy) and this is a hobby
>project.
>
>Thank you.
>
>--
>Neil Cherry     http://home.att.net/~ncherry    ncherry@worldnet.att.net
>
>