the Otherpower.com Discussion Board || Another battery failure

Front Page - [Homebrewed Electricity-- (wind) (solar) (hydro) (steam) (controls) (storage) (mechanical)] - Classifieds - Site News
Everything - Newbies - [Remote Living-- (housing) (heat) (light) (water)] - Rants & Opinion - Diaries - Our Products

Another battery failure
By wpowokal, Section Diaries Posted on Fri May 23rd, 2008 at 07:29:58 AM MST
another one bites the dust

Have noticed recently that battery volts have been dipping a bit lower than normal, so being a wet day I broke into the battery room.
Terminal voltage checks soon revealed one bank with high cell volts and of course one cell nealy zero.

The bulging positive plates can be seen to the left of the second pic, as these are 20 year old batteries one must expect these things. My guess is it shorted out and subsequently sulphated up.
allan down under

Another battery failure | 4 comments (4 topical, 0 editorial)

Re: Another battery failure (3.00 / 0) (#1)
by Jon Miller (Fieldlines 'at' otherpower 'dot' co 'dot' uk) on Fri May 23rd, 2008 at 02:33:20 AM MST
(User Info) http://www.otherpower.co.uk

Hello,

If you can get the top off, get a thin straw on an air compressor and blow a little air from the bottom of the plate in question to try and remove the sulphate and or any rubbish between the plates. It might bring back a little life back to the cell.

Regards
Jon M

www.otherpower.co.uk "I am certainly not a perfectionist, the thing is to know where you can take short c

Re: Another battery failure (3.00 / 0) (#2)
by tecker on Fri May 23rd, 2008 at 04:35:40 AM MST
(User Info)

Epson salts in distilled water will take care of most of the sulphate . Wash that clean with tap water and fill it up with distilled water see put it on the charger at a trickle then pluse it if it comes up . If it's not shorted it will come up . If you can load it at all dump out half the water and ad acid and pulse more . Work in more acid and continue checking sg and add acid to get that up with a normal charge mode.

Re: Another battery failure (3.00 / 0) (#3)
by Flux on Sun May 25th, 2008 at 02:37:45 AM MST
(User Info)

20 years is a good life for these type of cells. That one looks as though the electrolyte might have stratified. These cells need a good boiling regularly to stir up the electrolyte. If the others are the same it might not be a bad idea to give them a boil, but the damage may have been done long ago and not recently.

You know you are really on a looser with them when they start splitting the jars. The positives eventually expand and short to the negatives or split the jars.

You seem to have avoided certain batches that failed by corrosion of the positive link bars and connection failure to the positive lug. I have seen batches fail that way in far less than 20 years. Tungstone and Chloride both seem to have made some change at various times and certain batches have suffered, not sure if any other manufacturers had this problem.

Flux

[ Parent ]

Re: Another battery failure (3.00 / 0) (#4)
by wpowokal on Sun May 25th, 2008 at 05:21:30 AM MST
(User Info)

If one looks at the second picture, to the left, two positive plates have definatly expanded and contacted the negative connetor.

They do get regular boilings, I feel that this one is just one that has fallen by the way, but I still expect to have enough survivors to last another 5 years.

allan down under
A life lived in fear is a life half lived.
[ Parent ]

Another battery failure | 4 comments (4 topical, 0 editorial)

Menu

· create account
· How to use the board
· FAQs
· search the board
· Google search the board
· Old Otherpower Board

Login

Make a new account

Username:

Password:

Total Views

130 Scoop users have viewed this posting.

Related Links

· wpowokal's Diary

You must be a registered user to post here. It's easy and free, and the link is on the upper right side of your page.
All trademarks and copyrights on this page are owned by their respective companies. Postings are owned by the poster, but may be deleted or moved at the ADMIN's sole discretion. The Rest © 2003 Forcefield.
You can Email the board ADMIN here. PLEASE include the username you signed up with!