sounds good, i have some experimenting to do. in my projects current form it's installed and not very accessible, I'll build a breadboard version and see what i get.
if i imagine the battery question correctly, its not series, nor parallel - so some form of an equation would give me the anwser... so it is easier to build the actual and just measure it... 
thanks for the help, i'll get back to ya (work is finished, gotta catch the bus)
_J