lead acid battery, current situation, Nov 2007

[shay]

Most lead acid batteries do not reach their full potential (no pun intended) in photovoltaic (PV) use or most services. Take a look at proceedings.ndia.org the presentation for the US Marine Corp battery training, vehicle_batTraining-Abelson. There is only one better place I can see to get battery knowledge, that of submarine battery maintenance. I'd like to know where to get this knowledge.

It is rumored that battery rebuilders often cut the cases apart, inspect and clean, recase, and sell it as new. With a time based warrantee no one should be hurt. So we are interested in the next step up (down?) in this process, that of an economically disadvantaged and interested battery user willing to adapt to the times and triple the life of his/her batteries.  

Currently, the technologies worth studying are better initial system design, pulse charging, and RF (radio frequency) desulfation. Many PV systems that are balanced (input vs output) provide the needed power to operate the system but not maintain the batteries. I estimate that an additional 1/3 increase in total power production is necessary to pulse charge and RF desulfate to get the best out of your lead acid batteries. Add to this the time for the maintainer to analyse and systematically track the performance of the network and one can see why battery replacement is attractive.

There appears to be an argument for simultaneous pulse desulfation and pulse charging. Add to this, de-dendritification (is that a word?), but no such instrument currently exists maybe Don Denhardt has one "on-the-board"). Check these resources:

http://www.shaka.com/~kalepa/desulf.htm

http://electronics-lab.com/projects/power/036/

http://home.comcast.net/~ddenhardt201263/desulfator/highpower.htm

[Flux]

There may be an argument for pulse charging but I see no evidence that in any way does any desulphating. It will certainly do some dendrite removal if the pulses are high enough and I am fairly sure that some benefit occurs to positive plates that have become practically non conducting but I have never manage to get any benefit from a genuinely sulphated battery that a good equalising won't do.

I know others are convinced but I am not. If you have faith, try it, it will work for you . If like me you don't believe it, don't try it just doesn't work.

It's wonderful fun designing pulse desulphators and you learn a lot about pulse circuitry and measurements of current in pulse circuits. You realise the current pulse amplitude claimed by those people is wrong and you learn that the resonant frequency of a battery is a function of its length but you get no desulphating.

No reply to anyone who disagrees, it's my opinion after much research and test and nobody will change my mind unless they come up with a very logical argument why it should work.

Flux

[spinningmagnets]

Dear Shay, I still have much to learn, but I believe there may still be some new developments to be found in making these expensive batteries last longer.

The only note I have to add is thats it's my understanding that deep-cycle batteries have noticably thicker plates specifically because normal cycling causes some of the lead to melt away. When holes start to form in the plates there are fewer square inches of surface available for the reaction. Clear motorcycle starting-battery cases will even show when the residue that builds up in the bottom of the case is rising, and about to short out the bottoms of the plates.

If poor operation and maintenance has led to a heavily sulfated battery that still has thick plates, I'm sure it may be worthwhile to find out how to safely drain and clean the plates, but I am not familiar with the proper techniques.

scottsai@eml.cc  AND   healerenergy@yahoo.com  are familiar with submarine batteries and may be able to direct you to the manuals.

"The one thing I remember about my father is that he taught me to swim by throwing me out of a boat in the middle of a lake. Mind you, learning to swim wasn't the hard part. The difficult part was getting out of the sack." -John Cleese

[shay]

The type of pulse could do different things;  dendrite burning, desulfation, or  charging. The best would be to have a mix until it could be determined if there was a specific need and then a switch to concentrate on that need.  

[shay]

I remember seeing glass aquariums about the size of a car battery. I was told that they were for batteries. I assume that shorting of the plates by debris was fairly common but we can't see this with most batteries purchased today. The great depression probably taught people how to get every last bit of energy out of their batteries and that information has been lost. Should we go back to glass battery cases? Yes.....if we are desperate enough!