Nickel Cadmium "Wet Cell" batteries

[Nil]

I went to ask my uncle some questions about getting a electric motor to be used as a conversion to a 'Zubbly' alternator(I know I'll be posting questions about the conversion). He asked me some general questions for what I planned. Then informed me that he had 13 NiCad batteries not being used, if I'd like to have them and their charger. Being a person that really likes the way 'free' rings when used describing something I need, I took him up on his offer.

Now comes the task of identifying these batteries, and if they will be good for my system. These will be used on a cabin that is off grid and currently is not truly lived in except in the summer. Right now I expect this system to only really run lighting, so a small system would be ok to start off with. This cabin is left unattended for one month or more at times. Also we dont have any kind of a RE system setup right now so I can build around these batteries.

Now, back to the battery setup. They are from a backup generator, used for starting. My uncel beleives that they are around 3 years old, but received little use. I checked them and each cell has 1.2 volts in them. The batteries are paired up 2 cells per battery, so I have 26 cells available. I'm guessing this bank was paired up for 36 volts?

The bennifits I understand are that these NiCads are able to withstand cold temperatures. Are able to stand up to the test of time if treated good, up to 20 years? Beyond that a lot that I read I beleive mostly applies to the small NiCads, not the flooded cells? Its hard to draw a line in the sand for using these with with solar/wind systems.

Anyway, My questions are.

1. With these wet cells should you 'deep cycle' them, or treat them like a normal battery and try to keep them withen limits, and what are those limits.
   
2. Can someone identify who made these? I beleive they were made by Saft power systems of Sweden, but I've found very simalar info from a Indian company.
   
3. Can you charge these like you would a lead-acid by using a shunt regulator, and just dump the load into the batteries untill they are charged?
   
4. What kind of voltage setups are available with these. The way I'm thinking with 12v I'd have to leave a couple cells out, and other setups except 32v as well.
   
5. If you had a choice between these batteries or '8D' batteries for my setup, what would you choose?
   
   

So here's the Pics.

Top view of the batteries, ruler included for compairison.

Side view of batteries, HDD magnet holding the ruler to the side.

The Only identifying label.

Battery charger innards.

and the Charger info.

Sorry for such the long post, I figured I'd give as much detail as possible. If anyone can help me with these questions, and probably more as they come to mind I'd be very thankful.

[amiklic1]

Try this ( I was looking for NIFE manufacturer, as stated on the label of your batteries.

http://www.hblnifeuk.com/railways%20VRPP%20link.htm

Also, you can read my post:

http://www.fieldlines.com/story/2005/9/11/194133/290 , and

http://www.fieldlines.com/story/2005/9/22/181757/062

I haven't save my batteries yet, bnecause I ned to buy KOH for them.

My batteries are old ones, and I think you'll get no problems with yours. You can enjoy many years of usage. The voltage-drop curve in these batteries is not as in lead-acid ones. The voltage stays pretty flat until they are discarged a lot, and than rapidly falls down, as I understand.

However, try on the links, learn s much as you find. Maybe build some rejuvenator (simple device that really wrks!) and enjoy free energy.

[willib]

question 5 answer...those are beautiful batteries , truely a work of art.

[nanotech]

I don't think there's an HTML color equivelant to how green I am right now!!

How come I can't find any orgasmically (almost) good deals like this?!?!?!

(waaah)

[Flux]

26. cells would be a nominal 32v battery. Usually they use 10 cells for 12V.
    
32. V was common for lighting plants at one time.
    
    

You have a good find there, they are quite modern by NiFe standards, I have never seen them without wooden crates, they can't be many years old and should last you many years if you keep the electrolyte level up and change it every few years.

Flux

[Bruce S]

Nil;

 I must say, I am just as green as others. These have to be some of the nicest battery sets I have ever seen without them being new.

A couple things that I have learned by using and reading as much as I can about NiCds. And with reference to your very well done pictures.

NiCds can make use of a standard Lead acid battery charger but only if the volatges are kept close.

You where very correct in the being able to take extreme colds, so long as they have a good charge even at 50% charge they'll survive.

The one thing you'll not want to do it let them go below 1.01Vdc/cell. AT this point NiCds begin to reverse polarity internally and are subject to bursting if you try to recover them ( happen in our shop more than once).

Seeing that these have a "buss" bar linking them into 2.4Vdc you could try CAREFULLY removing this bar. The bolt should unscrew , but becareful if it offers resistance tighten it back down and leave it otherwise you may tear the inside.

NiCds will loose energy just sitting there so it may be best to give them all a voltage test with the buss bar removed and if by chance you happen to have a small wall wart that outputs down in the 3VDC range charging in mAh range, put a resistor across it to bring down the voltage and let it sit for a couple hours on each battery.

This will wake them up and though the very low charge may seem to take forever to charge, it will keep them from dying a no-charge death until you have the RE built.

That charger you got with them also looks to be very very well engineered, by the looks of the input voltage transformers. You could adapt it to just about whatever voltage input you have, just make sure the taps agree with what you have. The output will do the rest. Another point , that big grounding fuse you have in there, I suspect it is a chemical fuse, CAREFULLY remove it and go get another new one rated the same or as close as possible. These were notorious for drying up on the inside and themselves becoming a hazard. You'll want to make sure whatever you use is a FAST_ACTING fuse, not slow-blow.

Take decent care of these, and they'll last your life time.

BTW: NiCds actually work better when you use them down to 80% charge and when fully charged will actually read 1.25Vdc, but I wouldn't design with that in mind.

I do think the label is misleading unless there are some batteries missing as there really isn't a big way of getting 42Vdc out of 31.2Vdc total on the batteries. Of course there are ways but not a straight forward route. Since the label does show the 16.5Ah I would guess that rating stands for each one individual as they used these in serial mode to get the higher voltages

As for question #5 I'll take these!! And if you want to let me know where you're at and I will come pick them up too <LOL>

Have fun with these!! They are quite a find.

Cheers

Bruce s

[DanG]

They would make a great second string "back-up" bank - they don't self discharge much!

The discharge depth isn't so good - taking the top 10-20% only is what gives 2,500 - 3,500+ lifetime discharge cycles.

I've worked with these that had a shallow undertemp protection - just meant for brief back-up under high current loads untill back-up or grid power was restored, or else they would under-volt cut out quickly. Also the electrolyte had oil layer barrier to reduce evaporation but they boil over easily, don't top off a flat battery or you'll likely lose electrolyte when bulk charging gets them bubbling and roiling.

Keeping batteries cool is key - that's 2,500+ charge-discharge cycles at 25° C MAX. The KOH solution can easily stand 0°F w/o freezing, better details found here:

http://tinyurl.com/9w756

[DanG]

Per AZSolar pdf from above link...

Charged stand loss in capacity at -20°C is essentially zero but increases with increasing stand temperature and cell plate area per unit capacity. At 25°C the loss is 0.1 to 1.0% per day averaged over 4-6 months, but loss rates during the first 10-20 days will be 1-2% per day and much lower thereafter. At 45°C the loss rate is about 3 times that at 25°C (4-9). Charged stand loss rates of space type thin plate hermetically sealed NiCd cells were observed to be 0.1% per day at 0°C, 0.7% per day at 20°C, and 2% per day at 30°C (4-10). Conditions which lead to higher charged stand losses are excessive overcharge, high operating and stand temperature, and the contamination of the electrolyte by nitrates and tin.

[Texas Al]

If they're NiCd, why are the labeled NiFe? Could they actually be nickel-iron, or is the brand name just a coincidence?

[Clifford]

Not sure about concentrations, however, you can purchase either NaOH or KOH as Drain Cleaner at the local hardware store.  Here, I found the NaOH in either solid or liquid forms, and the KOH only in liquid forms.

[Nil]

Thank everybody for the comments, I can tell by the color of your faces that I need to hang onto these batteries tightly.

Thanks amiklic1 for those links, I had read your threads here just before posting myself. They cleared up a couple questions I had about these batteries. I hadnt viewed that page with HBLNife before now though. Hopefully you can get your batteries cleared up.

I was afraid that I'd have a hard time running these at anything but the 32v(I guessed those v wrong). If need be I

could see if I can pick up a couple more of these since the different battery ages dont affet Ni-Cd banks.

Thanks Bruce S, I'm going to have the read through your post a bit so everything will soak in. These batteries dont have the lower bus bar on them right now so I was able to test each cell. They all read 1.2v varying from 1.23v to 1.28v. I beleive these are still in very good condition. Thanks for the offer to take these off my hands but I'll be hanging on to them for a while. Besides I'm not sure if you'd want to drive to New Mexico.

I did find some info for the cycling of these batteries and they seem to be normal to other batteries in that respect. but they do have the ability to deeply disscharge(1v? I'll have to look again) several times without much risk of harm. It looks like a home brew shunt regulator will work fine with these, if you over charge them they mearly use more water.

Nife seams to be a name-brand.. or a association sorta, I'm still trying to figure out that one.

I have not been able to find the maker of the 'KPH122 P'. Saft Nife sells the 'SBH### P' styles with the ### indicating the Amp-Hours of the battery. I guess I have a decent about of amps sitting here to run my lights.

Here is some bits and pieces I found regarding the care, and use of flooded Ni-Cds in this PDF.

http://www.saftbatteries.com/130-Catalogue/PDF/io_bb_en.pdf

"In most applications the electrolyte will retain its effectiveness for the life of the battery. However, under certain conditions, such as extended use in high temperature situations the electrolyte can become carbonated. If this occurs the battery performance can be improved by replacing the electrolyte.

The standard electrolyte used for the first fill in cells is E22 and for replacement in service is E13

Once the battery has been filled with the correct electrolyte at the battery factory, there is no need to check the electrolyte density periodically. Interpretation of density measurements is difficult and could be misleading.

Type 'H': The SBH(kph too?) is designed for applications where there is a demand for a relatively high current over short periods, usually less than 30 minutes in durations. The applications can have frequent or infrequent discharges. The range is typically used in starting and power backup applications.

Charging value for the H type, would be minimum 1.43V to a max of 1.5V per cell.

The block battery can be charged by all normal methods. Generally, batteries in parallel operation with charger and load are charged with constant voltage. In operations where the battery is charged separately from the load, charging with constant current or declining current is possible. High-rate charging or overcharging will not damage the battery, but excessive charging will increase water consumption to some degree.

During charging, more ampere-hours are supplied to the battery than the capacity available for discharge. These additional ampere-hours must be provided to return the battery to the fully charged state and, since the are not all retained by the cell and do not all contribute directly to the chemical changes to the active materials in the plates, they must be dissipates in some way. This surplus charge, or overcharge, breaks down the water content of the electrolyte into oxygen and hydrogen, and pure distilled water has to be added to replace this loss."

I myself normally lurked, and if any other lurkers come along with Ni-Cd batteries this may be a nice reference thread.

I'll be adding any info I believe is relevant on this style of battery to this thread. If anyone is willing to add more info, or wants to point out wrong information, I'd be grateful. I'm sure future people will as well.

[ericwahl]

Here is some info on NiCds.  These are made in India I believe, and cost a fortune.  They do have some KPH part numbers.

http://www.sbsbattery.com/PDFs/SBS_KP%20Single.pdf

[nickelbender]

Those are Saft station batteries and it looks like you have part of a backup power suply for a high voltage substation. If these are what I think they are, they powered instrumentation and charged the braker for an auotmatic restart.

That panel in the background should connect to an inverter/charger. This system is nice because it has a recon charge function and low idle power draw so it can last for hours or days in an interuption.

If these have been sitting I would dump them,washthem out with distilled watter and refill with electrolite. There is also a special sell oil Saft sells to coat the tops of the fliud in the cells and reduce evaporation.

Doug

[nickelbender]

The reasons behind the cost is these are a low volume product and the material needed to make them is expensive and right now a little on the short side.

I believe the LME price for melting grade nickle is around $6.75 a pound, but batteries are made from metal refined from the "Nickel Carbonyl" process. Inco doesn't advertise how much they sell it for.....

Doug

[Texas Al]

What's an LME price? And where can you buy nickel for $6.75 a pound?

In general, how do you go about figuring out where to obtain various feedstocks? I never realized how hard it would be to even figure out where to get stuff for DIY projects that isn't "ordinary" home improvement materials.

[zyewdall]

"If they're NiCd, why are the labeled NiFe? Could they actually be nickel-iron, or is the brand name just a coincidence?"

Yeah, it's just brand name -- from what I understand the NiCad replaced NiFe as the desired technology a while ago.  We used a set of NiFe NiCad batteries for many years.  Had to replace the electrolyte once.  I think they are around 20 years old now.  I'd love to have a set of brand new ones like yours.  Keep them cool.  We have our's in an attic, and they regularly run at 90F -- not good for the life.  We need to replace the electrolyte again, as they are only giving about 25% of rated capacity now.

Zeke

[ruddycrazy]

Hiya Guy's,

           I also have 10 of those nife nicad batteries very similar to the above pictures of the batteries. I've got my batteries setup as a 15 volt array meaning 2 sets of 5 batteries in series. I made up my own shunt regular for them and they float around 15.5 volts then sink any dump into 4 mosfets which is currently hooked up to heating wire which is on the floor of my shed. If needed I can dig up the info I have on the batteries but as I'm heading back off to work on sunday I'll be away for another 3 weeks so I'll have to do it in the next few days if you need it.

Cheers Bryan

[Nil]

Yes I'd love to have any info for these batteries, especially since you are currently running them.

Is the regulator you have a standard shunt regulator? I'm being lead to beleive that a normal reulator would work but if you found something that would work better I wouldnt mind knowing.

No rush for the info, I'm going to be refeancing back to this thread for more info so I wont miss anything new.

Well I'm off to school, thanks for the additional info everyone.

[nickelbender]

Oh...

The LME is the Londom Metals exchange, they set prices for non ferous metals and hold reserves in warehouse around the world.

YOU can't buy nickel at 6.82 a pound (todays price) and I have no idea where you would buy small quantities. For batteries you need a premium metal power like Inco 204, this then has to be sintered into plates and this isn't a DIY project. As I said before I have no idea what the prices are on premium pellats and powders but recently a truck leaving the Inco CCNR (I believe it was heading for Novamet or some other US customer) and was hi-jacked on the 400 in southern Ontario and I am told the cargo was valued at over $500,000.

Nickel, Cobalt, PGMs and Titanium are classed as stratigic metals(you can't fight a war without them kind of like oil), this means they are scarce, expensive and held in reserves. Since the US has no mines producing these metals it may be you can't buy them directly, you may need a permit to buy them from a trading house.

You probaly could by something like electrolitic "S" rounds from a plating shop, but this isn't the premium 99.9 stuff and your back to square one.

Doug

[ruddycrazy]

Hiya Nil,

         I bought a shunt regulator kit from Oatleys( www.oatleye.com) and changed a few resistors to make it suit my batteries. It's an easy kit to make and I found mine works well and I'm in the process of installing a fan so I can cycle the batteries instead of them floating and wasting the extra energy heating the concrete floor. The regulator has a fan output whinch will turn on at float voltage and turn off at a preset point usually 2 volts below float. What I found out on the nife batteries they float at 16.5 volts but as I'm using a 12 volt inverter with them the inverter cuts out at 15.5 volts so I have the shunt regulator set to that point.

Cheers Bryan

[Nil]

Thanks ruddycrazy, I'll have to look at those regulators for these. I was fairly sure a normal shunt regulator would work, at least I don't have any reservations now.

I haven't been able to find a wall-wart with either the 1.5v, or 3v rating yet so I hooked them up in series and charged 2 strings of them for an hour. They do hold a good charge after they have been off the charger for a while but a couple cells vary up to .08v from each other. I don't believe that's anything to worry about but it caught my eye anyway.

I'm planning on getting a couple PV panels to play around with the batteries until I'm able to get a alternator setup of some kind.

I'm still dragging up info for wet cell ni-cds, the most relevant stuff has already been added to the post, but if I find anything worth mentioning I'll add it here for the sake of people to search later.

[ruddycrazy]

Hiya Nils,

          Eh mate if you do end getting the shunt regulator from Oatleys you will need to make some changes to make it suit the nicad's below is the changes you need to make.

    You will need to make some changes to the resistive divider connected to pin

2 of IC1 to be able to adjust the trip point to 16.5V, as follows: replace

the 120k with 100k, the 12k with 8.2k and the 1k with a wire link. This will

give an adjustment range of about 14.1V to 17.5V.

         Also what I'm thinking of doing is mounting the 4 mosfets on a seperate board with a big heatsink as they can handle 50 amps @ 3.5 ohms each but some beefing up on the circuit board will be needed to handle the increased amperage. For a simple cheap shunt regulator this kit has the possiblilty of being used in just about any solar/wind array from 12-24 volts and with the changes desribed above work with nicad's/nife batteries too. I'm looking at making up a heavier board with a few changes as the kit says it can handle 250 watts but I reckon I can make it handle heaps more but the simple voltage sensing technique will remain the same.

Note: Silly me tried to use an automotive fan on the fan output and ended up de-soldering the mosfet that drives the fan through the heat generated but the regulator still works OK.

Cheers Bryan

[Nil]

Thanks for the second reply, I had quickly wondered how you had adjusted the shunt for the higher volts. Once I get a regulator I would have been needing to harass you again to find out how you made that adjustment. It would have been trouble to find it otherwise I bet, Thanks again.

[Texas Al]

Does it have to be so highly purified if all I'm trying to do is make a battery?

I would expect that not-quite-pure nickel might be less efficient as a battery electrode, but why would it abruptly just fail to work altogether? I would think there would be some wiggle-room with tolerances.

I think people think batteries are so hard to make that nobody is even experimenting, and therefore they remain hard to make. Like electrical generators were until we started trying to make them.

[twidget]

Hi all

Found your thread on wet NIcads interesting. I have a set of these that started out their life in industrial forktrucks. the one I have are made by Hoppecke German I think. These Nicads were pulled from sevice because of maintenance costs. From my research I have found that these are lifetime batteies. the electolyte is the only thing that normaly goes bad, and can be replaced. Ricard Perez wrote a few articles in the early issues of Home Power magazine about renewing this type of battery. and  I did find them in an archive on the internet.

The cells I have I configured as a parrallel 12v bank. 10 cells in series. I normally charge with a solar boost solar charge controller with 400W of panels. I had to crank it up to its max to get the charge voltage up where I wanted it. These Batteies are the sole source of storage for my off grid house. In the winter I have to run a generator a few hours a week to maintain a usefull charge. Charging with the generator I use a heavy duty car battery charger an try to run it at its max of 60 A charge current. My Ah capacity on my bank is about 700 Ah. I tend to run the voltage down to the cutout on my inverter 10.1 V before I worry about firing up the genny. I have had these for 6 years now and they work great. I have not had to add any water to speak of and they seem to be in just of good of shape as when I aquired them.

The oil that was spoken of is a mineral oil, and from my research it appears that its primary purpose is to keep carbon dioxide from contaminating the electrolyte. I have found Koh available from a tanning supply house on the internet. Also from what I found it appears that a lithium hydoxide is also used in small amounts when mixing up new electolyte, this stuff looks real expensive. I havn't tried reoing my electrolyte yet.

Hoppecke did have some info on the nicads, but most of what I found was in german.

I'd like to see this thread continued, as a place to share info on NIcads.

Just my $0.02

Twidget

[Nil]

I just re-checked my post (#10), and I added the wrong link there, it should have been http://www.saftbatteries.com//130-Catalogue/PDF/tm_bb.pdf which has a pretty good amount of info about Ni-Cd batteries.

Still digging up more info(slowly), just nothing too amazing to add here as of yet

[tsakach]

Alas, one of the main disadvantages with wet-cell nicads is poor power conversion efficiency compared to other types of storage technology:

"Ni-Cd cells tend to be even less power conversion efficient than wet/flooded cell lead-acid technology. For example, to completely re-charge a new Ni-Cd cell, Ni-Cd manufacturer SAFT recommends charging their cells with 140% of the rated capacity (so a 100aH cell requires 140Ah of current to be recharged). Regular flooded cells weigh in at 125% while AGMs can require as little as 105% to be recharged.

Furthermore, Ni-Cds self-discharge faster than AGMs (5% per month @ 25deg C vs. 1-2% for AGMs). The cycle life in deep-cycle applications is only marginally better: SAFT claims about 2,000 cycles at 50% DOD for their Ni-Cd system, while Rolls and others make lead-acid systems with cycle lives in excess of 3,000 cycles at 50% DOD. Lifeline AGMs weigh in at 1,000 cycles under similar conditions. Industrial strength or PV-system lead acid cells can last even longer."

http://www.vonwentzel.net/Battery/00.Glossary/NickelCadmium.html

I have been using a set of wet-cell nicads as a reliable standby power system in the event the main system is discharged too low or fails for other reasons. These nicads have proven themselves to be very reliable and have several advantages over lead-acid technology. But the lack of efficiency means that up to 40% more solar panel capacity or wind turbines are needed to store the same amount of amp hours as lead acid batteries.