Simple large homemade battery .

[Mastiffman]

Hello ya all , I am allen a 66 year old retired (poor) toolmaker/designer .
I need technical help to develop , manufacture and sell a cheap system to the rural poor of South Africa .       
The requirement here ; is lights , cell charge , music and TV . Thats it !                                   A MASSIVE improvement to the lives of at least 20 million people, in this mess of a country .

Because the masses cook with fire , a steam engine generator seems a good choice . Wind power and solar is totally out as its too expensive , and ANYTHING outside will be stolen anyway . 100% guaranteed .

Apart from dangerous steam , the only other option seems to be a large bank of batteries, like fuel cells that can be manually charged by replacing deleted common "fuels" .

Here in S.A. the masses know about lead , copper and aluminum (because its sold to scrapyards all the time) . They familiar with supermarket products too like bleach etc .

So - this is the type of help I'm hoping for.....please .

 I personally Don't think that Modern Music and TV would be an improvement. There is a Lot of bad influence in Both Music and TV these daysand would be a hinderence due to corrpution more than anything.

 And as far as Solar unit being Stollen. It is possible to Lock this stuff down in a sense. Although being more expensive, Building a large topped Cage anchored by footings and lock bolted down over the units so that sun would not hindered but theves would Could be done under the right curcumstances. This definetely sounds like it would bring the country a bit more up to speed, but to be Completely honest, they need God more than anything. But I suppose that modern communication Could bring this as well, but it would also subject them to the rest of the bad.

 

[wooferhound]

Baghdad Battery
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baghdad_Battery
http://www.smith.edu/hsc/museum/ancient_inventions/battery2.html

[definitionofis]

Here is an interesting procedure for rebuilding a lead acid battery.
However, i did a video of dismantling a dead battery and I saw that one set of plates is not reusable because they were mostly crumbling.

So there is something missing from this video regarding where to get the lead oxide pasted plates. The lead polarity (not lead oxide) of a broken battery are usable plates, like in this video:

He should use gloves while handling lead. I think it can accumulate through the skin into your body and it is toxic.

[hvirtane]

They still make nickel iron batteries in China. They cost a little more than lead acid batteries but last much longer.

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On the other hand the only way known to me how to build a cheap and big storage yourself is to build a water container on the top of a hill or on the top of a tower. And to take the power out by a water turbine.  To make a water container capable of 1 kWh is no that big a thing, if you happen to have a hill.

But you'll need something to pump the water up (a simple pump using solar heat? a wind machine? a combustion engine with a gasifier?..) and you'll need a water turbine and a generator. The efficency to get the power out of the water (once it is up there) is quite high, even 90%. But to get the water up there, that efficiency wouldn't be that high, maybe... 

-hv       

[beaka]

A site called archive.org has online books from early battery research and consturction ie. from Edison and Plante theat are interesting and useful if you want to make your own batteries or power plants.