On May 29, 8:38 am, tlindly wrote:
On May 27, 12:20 pm, navti wrote:

after 18 hours if charging they are at 12,54 volts,

any thoughts ?

Is that;
1] 12,54 volts with charger still attached and charging?
2] 12,54 volts with the battery connected to nothing but a digital
Volt meter?
3] 12,54 volts with the battery now "running" 3-15 amps [whatever
your normal boat's usage is]?

If 1, you definitely have a bad cell [or your charger is broken].
Should be 13.6-14.4 [14.4 at the start {batt. dead} to 13.6 trickle
charging the fully charged batt.] unless you have a 'smart charger' or
reconditioner
If 2, This is totally meaningless data, all that most people ever know
of batteries, and how battery salesmen make their fortunes...[this is
"surface charge" you might have heard of...]. In a liquid battery,
this should stay at 13.6 for quite some time after removing the
charger [AGM's, with their inherently defective chemical nature
pointed out so eloquently by {I believe} Larry earlier, will usually
show something less depending {I reckon} on their quality], But even a
battery with a known dead cell can show this phantom voltage, so pay
it no heed!!!
If 3, looks promising. You still have to do the discharge test [run
10 amps for 11 hours, or 2 amps for 55 hours] to know if 110aH battery
is "good"

2 at present. I will try 3 and get back to you,.
ps
its not a boat its a camper-van

tlindly wrote in news:1180424314.345874.99050
@i38g2000prf.googlegroups.com:

show something less depending {I reckon} on their quality]

I love the "quality" hype. One plate is lead. One plate is lead
dioxide. The electrolyte is gauze soaked with a dilute solution of
H2SO4. The quality is in the label and plastic case.

Torn apart, and I have torn them apart, I don't see any quality inside.
You gotta go to a "quality" battery factory to believe it. Exide makes
"quality" batteries. Their plant was in Sumter, SC. It wasn't like a
laboratory, I can tell you. It's a dirty, nasty, smelly business making
batteries. You wouldn't wanna work there....(c; None of them are made
in a laboratory just for you.

A lead-acid battery "should stay at 13.6 for quite some time" is true. A
long time as it's dependent on chemistry. But, because they all are
built as cheaply as is humanly possible, no matter how good the quality
on the label is, they have impurities, notably iron, in them that self
discharge and eat areas of the plates. This doesn't harm the plates, but
consumes, irrecoverably, the acid...which is what makes a battery go
"dead". This happens to "new" batteries in the first 6 months, until the
impurities have been eaten away. Every month for the first 6 months, the
specific gravity of each cell should be measured, tracked and adjusted
back, after the battery has been fully, SLOWLY recharged, to 1.270
specific gravity, replacing the acid "local action" has eaten away.

Back in the diesel submarine days, Charleston Naval Shipyard had a
massive battery shop to restore and rebuild the boats' 6,250AH lead-acid
cells, that were about as tall as a man and 5' x 4' dimensions. The
batteries were made to drain, cut open and remove the plates/separator
structure, clean out and replace the core structure. It was something to
witness close up. The acid was purified and recycled, not dumped in the
river as some thought. They had a chemical plant to do just that. Once
rebuilt, the batteries were carefully fueled with purified acid, left to
"perk" a week, then taken to a massive gallery that was the shipyard's
battery charger room to be cycled and tested. The battery was cycled
from 1.270 to 1.180 through huge resistors three times to soften the
plates. Then, after a good recharging at 600A for 14 hours with a
thermometer in each cell of the gallery, load tested for AH capacity,
further exercising the new plates. Certified cells were then recharged
and gravity-adjusted back to 1.270 before being loaded onto many railroad
cars back to the boats in the drydocks. If you needed hydrogen to fill
your Hindenberg, it was vented out the top of the charging building,
along with GigaBTus of heat by massive fan arrays to prevent explosions.
They still had some impressive "accidents" over the years. An old friend
of mine worked in there for 35 years before retiring from supervision.
He taught me more about batteries than anyone else...lead-acid batteries.

One cool spectacle was that before the old plates could be sent off to
the salvage yard, to prevent salvage yard fires, a huge iron bar was
clamped across the terminals of the cell and left a day. This bar was
about 2" in diameter and glowed BLOOD RED for many, many hours....with
only the electrolyte that hadn't drained out of the separators laying
sideways on a pallet! It eventually stopped and the plates sent off to
salvage...to be recycled by the lead smelters back into battery beasts to
drive the fleet.

Larry
--
I had a Volkswagen Kombi bus camper. Under its back seat was a custom
built deep cycle 8D that filled the compartment, built in that battery
shop by my friend. Sometimes, the charging current from the little
Volkswagen's little, old fashioned, DC generator, dropped almost to 20A!
You could camp all weekend without charging, leaving all the lights on
like a beacon in the night way past midnight, to the amazement of the
tent campers armed with only flashlights....(c; I think I could have
driven the bus home on the starter if the engine failed to start...

navti wrote in news:1180442689.967642.246260
@p47g2000hsd.googlegroups.com:

its not a boat its a camper-van



GEEZ, don't tell 'em that! They think yachts are more special than mere
RVs...(c;

One waterfront property owner called the marina "That Floating Trailer
Park" and got 'em all excited in Beaufort, SC....(c;

Larry
--
Grade School Physics Factoid:
A building cannot freefall into its own footprint without
skilled demolition.

In article ,
Larry wrote:

tlindly wrote in news:1180424314.345874.99050
@i38g2000prf.googlegroups.com:

show something less depending {I reckon} on their quality]

I love the "quality" hype. One plate is lead. One plate is lead
dioxide. The electrolyte is gauze soaked with a dilute solution of
H2SO4. The quality is in the label and plastic case.

Torn apart, and I have torn them apart, I don't see any quality inside.
You gotta go to a "quality" battery factory to believe it. Exide makes
"quality" batteries. Their plant was in Sumter, SC. It wasn't like a
laboratory, I can tell you. It's a dirty, nasty, smelly business making
batteries. You wouldn't wanna work there....(c; None of them are made
in a laboratory just for you.

snip

This reminds me of an article in a 1950's 'Practical Motorist' regarding
resuscitating old batteries.

It showed diagrammes of the old battery with the bottom edge of the
plates eaten away (before). Their article explained that you should cut
off the top of the battery and reverse these plates (after), as the
electrolysis worked at the bottom and reversing the plates doubled the
life...

They also had an article about how to build a sidecar out of an old
greenhouse..

:-)

Molesworth

"Molesworth" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Larry wrote:

tlindly wrote in news:1180424314.345874.99050
@i38g2000prf.googlegroups.com:

show something less depending {I reckon} on their quality]

I love the "quality" hype. One plate is lead. One plate is lead
dioxide. The electrolyte is gauze soaked with a dilute solution of
H2SO4. The quality is in the label and plastic case.

Torn apart, and I have torn them apart, I don't see any quality
inside.
You gotta go to a "quality" battery factory to believe it. Exide
makes
"quality" batteries. Their plant was in Sumter, SC. It wasn't like
a
laboratory, I can tell you. It's a dirty, nasty, smelly business
making
batteries. You wouldn't wanna work there....(c; None of them are
made
in a laboratory just for you.

snip

This reminds me of an article in a 1950's 'Practical Motorist'
regarding
resuscitating old batteries.

It showed diagrammes of the old battery with the bottom edge of the
plates eaten away (before). Their article explained that you should
cut
off the top of the battery and reverse these plates (after), as the
electrolysis worked at the bottom and reversing the plates doubled the
life...

They also had an article about how to build a sidecar out of an old
greenhouse..

:-)

Molesworth

Jay Leno has a couple of old electric cars in his garage. There was an
article in Popular Mechanics a month or so ago about his Baker electric
that had batteries that were re-buildable. (alkaline batteries???) Said
they have lead plates and use acid??There was a picture of him holding
one and it looked about the same size and shape as a 12volt starting
battery size 27. It said they could be rebuilt indefinitely which is
good since they were about a hundred years old already.

http://www.popularmechanics.com/auto...e/4215940.html

Wilbur Hubbard

"Wilbur Hubbard" wrote in news:ew%
:

Jay Leno has a couple of old electric cars in his garage. There was an
article in Popular Mechanics a month or so ago about his Baker electric
that had batteries that were re-buildable. (alkaline batteries???) Said
they have lead plates and use acid??There was a picture of him holding
one and it looked about the same size and shape as a 12volt starting
battery size 27. It said they could be rebuilt indefinitely which is
good since they were about a hundred years old already.

http://www.popularmechanics.com/auto...e/4215940.html

Wilbur Hubbard



Those batteries are Nickel-Iron "Edison" cells, like those used in older
fork lift trucks. They don't need rebuilding, almost ever. I have a set
of them that makes 14VDC for emergency power on my ham station. They
only require distilled water, which they do consume naturally with
charging. My cells came out of the Holiday Inn in Orangeburg, SC, in
1973. The date on them is 1958 when the Holiday Inn bought them for
backup power supply for their operator plugged internal telephone system.
When I got them, that system was scrapped for an automatic Bell$outh
exchange. The innkeeper was a ham radio friend of mine.

The cells are like NiCd or Ni-Mh...only 1.2V/cell. I have 12 cells in
series. They are not very efficient batteries, as you can read:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nickel-iron_battery
Waldemar Jungner, a Swede, invented them, but didn't produce them. As
with lots of other devices, Thomas Edison stole the design and called it
his, producing them in 1903. His interest, of course, was to put them in
every home to power the house with Edison's biggest mistake, DC power.
Tesla put an end to that nonsense at Niagara Falls, powering Rochester
and Buffalo with multiphase AC that's in your house today with his
flourescent and vapor arc lamps.

Reliability in constant use, which just kills lead-acid batteries as you
all know, is the reason for NiFe's use in high use forklifts until the
government bureaucrats forced Exide, who bought Edison's company and
patents, out of the nickel battery business in 1972. They made them in
Sumter, SC, where I lived, but made the stupid mistake of polluting the
ground with Nickel, ruining the ground water to peoples' wells for miles
and miles around the plant. Exide paid dearly in court, to the lawyers,
of course, not the well owners who had to fend for themselves with a
pittance. Only China produces Nickel batteries now, unconcerned with
pollution, of course.

You don't want them on your boat. Only problem with that use is you MUST
be able to water them, frequently. The electrolyte is potassium
hydroxide, a base not an acid. Unlike lead sulphate, which precipitates
and consumes lead batteries, the ions in a NiFe battery are fully
recoverable, even years after being left for dead. My cells were all
dead when I got them. Two required more potassium hydroxide to bring
them back to life and balance their odd specific gravity. You also
cannot confine them. The caps are explosion proof filtered vents on
mine. They gas something awful all the time the charger is on them...not
good in a boat. I leave them on a wooden pallet under my house, outside.
They are so heavy, I doubt anyone will just haul them away. They'd make
great ballast...(c; My cells weigh about 300# EACH and are 850AH. I run
a float charger I built for them in the 1970's on them, constantly,
because they leak a lot, self discharging in a month or two.

They are super rugged. You cannot overcharge them! If you charge too
hard or too long or overvoltage, they simply gas off your water and turn
your cells into a hydrogen generator. WHATEVER you do DO NOT SHORT THEM!
They will simply vaporize #0 welding cable in a flash! They have an
amazing current producing capability and very low internal
resistance...as long as they are not cold, not an issue in SC.

Noone makes them, any more, because of the pollution problem of
manufacturing and EXPENSE. AGM batteries would look really cheap next to
a new NiFe bank. Nickel is amazingly expensive in microdollarettes. You
need LOTS of Nickel in them. The other thing is our throw-away
mentality. We can't see beyond the end of our noses to any long-term
investments like having a set of batteries you'd move from place to
place, not needing to replace them....maybe ever. Long term, their price
point is cheaper than lead, but it wouldn't sell.

Larry
--
Many hams here are already waiting for me to kick the bucket so they can
take my set home.....(c;

Interesting insight. Thanks.

Wilbur Hubbard


"Larry" wrote in message
...
"Wilbur Hubbard" wrote in news:ew%
:

Jay Leno has a couple of old electric cars in his garage. There was
an
article in Popular Mechanics a month or so ago about his Baker
electric
that had batteries that were re-buildable. (alkaline batteries???)
Said
they have lead plates and use acid??There was a picture of him
holding
one and it looked about the same size and shape as a 12volt starting
battery size 27. It said they could be rebuilt indefinitely which is
good since they were about a hundred years old already.

http://www.popularmechanics.com/auto...e/4215940.html

Wilbur Hubbard



Those batteries are Nickel-Iron "Edison" cells, like those used in
older
fork lift trucks. They don't need rebuilding, almost ever. I have a
set
of them that makes 14VDC for emergency power on my ham station. They
only require distilled water, which they do consume naturally with
charging. My cells came out of the Holiday Inn in Orangeburg, SC, in
1973. The date on them is 1958 when the Holiday Inn bought them for
backup power supply for their operator plugged internal telephone
system.
When I got them, that system was scrapped for an automatic Bell$outh
exchange. The innkeeper was a ham radio friend of mine.

The cells are like NiCd or Ni-Mh...only 1.2V/cell. I have 12 cells in
series. They are not very efficient batteries, as you can read:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nickel-iron_battery
Waldemar Jungner, a Swede, invented them, but didn't produce them. As
with lots of other devices, Thomas Edison stole the design and called
it
his, producing them in 1903. His interest, of course, was to put them
in
every home to power the house with Edison's biggest mistake, DC power.
Tesla put an end to that nonsense at Niagara Falls, powering Rochester
and Buffalo with multiphase AC that's in your house today with his
flourescent and vapor arc lamps.

Reliability in constant use, which just kills lead-acid batteries as
you
all know, is the reason for NiFe's use in high use forklifts until the
government bureaucrats forced Exide, who bought Edison's company and
patents, out of the nickel battery business in 1972. They made them
in
Sumter, SC, where I lived, but made the stupid mistake of polluting
the
ground with Nickel, ruining the ground water to peoples' wells for
miles
and miles around the plant. Exide paid dearly in court, to the
lawyers,
of course, not the well owners who had to fend for themselves with a
pittance. Only China produces Nickel batteries now, unconcerned with
pollution, of course.

You don't want them on your boat. Only problem with that use is you
MUST
be able to water them, frequently. The electrolyte is potassium
hydroxide, a base not an acid. Unlike lead sulphate, which
precipitates
and consumes lead batteries, the ions in a NiFe battery are fully
recoverable, even years after being left for dead. My cells were all
dead when I got them. Two required more potassium hydroxide to bring
them back to life and balance their odd specific gravity. You also
cannot confine them. The caps are explosion proof filtered vents on
mine. They gas something awful all the time the charger is on
them...not
good in a boat. I leave them on a wooden pallet under my house,
outside.
They are so heavy, I doubt anyone will just haul them away. They'd
make
great ballast...(c; My cells weigh about 300# EACH and are 850AH. I
run
a float charger I built for them in the 1970's on them, constantly,
because they leak a lot, self discharging in a month or two.

They are super rugged. You cannot overcharge them! If you charge too
hard or too long or overvoltage, they simply gas off your water and
turn
your cells into a hydrogen generator. WHATEVER you do DO NOT SHORT
THEM!
They will simply vaporize #0 welding cable in a flash! They have an
amazing current producing capability and very low internal
resistance...as long as they are not cold, not an issue in SC.

Noone makes them, any more, because of the pollution problem of
manufacturing and EXPENSE. AGM batteries would look really cheap next
to
a new NiFe bank. Nickel is amazingly expensive in microdollarettes.
You
need LOTS of Nickel in them. The other thing is our throw-away
mentality. We can't see beyond the end of our noses to any long-term
investments like having a set of batteries you'd move from place to
place, not needing to replace them....maybe ever. Long term, their
price
point is cheaper than lead, but it wouldn't sell.

Larry
--
Many hams here are already waiting for me to kick the bucket so they
can
take my set home.....(c;

UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE

Both Batteries were charged on full last night for 3 hours .
I put some lights on them for 2-3mins before checking voltage to
remove the surface charge (as advised by Ken Heaton).
They showed 12.69V and are sitting steady. Will leave them to settle
until till tomorrow evening then start using them and try and figure
out their performance over the next few days.

On May 29, 9:37 pm, Larry wrote:
"Wilbur Hubbard" wrote in news:ew%
:

Jay Leno has a couple of old electric cars in his garage. There was an
article in Popular Mechanics a month or so ago about his Baker electric
that had batteries that were re-buildable. (alkaline batteries???) Said
they have lead plates and use acid??There was a picture of him holding
one and it looked about the same size and shape as a 12volt starting
battery size 27. It said they could be rebuilt indefinitely which is
good since they were about a hundred years old already.

http://www.popularmechanics.com/auto...e/4215940.html

Wilbur Hubbard

Those batteries are Nickel-Iron "Edison" cells, like those used in older
fork lift trucks. They don't need rebuilding, almost ever. I have a set
of them that makes 14VDC for emergency power on my ham station. They
only require distilled water, which they do consume naturally with
charging. My cells came out of the Holiday Inn in Orangeburg, SC, in
1973. The date on them is 1958 when the Holiday Inn bought them for
backup power supply for their operator plugged internal telephone system.
When I got them, that system was scrapped for an automatic Bell$outh
exchange. The innkeeper was a ham radio friend of mine.

The cells are like NiCd or Ni-Mh...only 1.2V/cell. I have 12 cells in
series. They are not very efficient batteries, as you can read:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nickel-iron_battery
Waldemar Jungner, a Swede, invented them, but didn't produce them. As
with lots of other devices, Thomas Edison stole the design and called it
his, producing them in 1903. His interest, of course, was to put them in
every home to power the house with Edison's biggest mistake, DC power.
Tesla put an end to that nonsense at Niagara Falls, powering Rochester
and Buffalo with multiphase AC that's in your house today with his
flourescent and vapor arc lamps.

Reliability in constant use, which just kills lead-acid batteries as you
all know, is the reason for NiFe's use in high use forklifts until the
government bureaucrats forced Exide, who bought Edison's company and
patents, out of the nickel battery business in 1972. They made them in
Sumter, SC, where I lived, but made the stupid mistake of polluting the
ground with Nickel, ruining the ground water to peoples' wells for miles
and miles around the plant. Exide paid dearly in court, to the lawyers,
of course, not the well owners who had to fend for themselves with a
pittance. Only China produces Nickel batteries now, unconcerned with
pollution, of course.

Isn't it ironic folks that the US government will take someone to
court for NIckel leakage yet is

On May 30, 7:33 am, navti wrote:
On May 29, 9:37 pm, Larry wrote:

"Wilbur Hubbard" wrote in news:ew%
:

Jay Leno has a couple of old electric cars in his garage. There was an
article in Popular Mechanics a month or so ago about his Baker electric
that had batteries that were re-buildable. (alkaline batteries???) Said
they have lead plates and use acid??There was a picture of him holding
one and it looked about the same size and shape as a 12volt starting
battery size 27. It said they could be rebuilt indefinitely which is
good since they were about a hundred years old already.

http://www.popularmechanics.com/auto...e/4215940.html

Wilbur Hubbard

Those batteries are Nickel-Iron "Edison" cells, like those used in older
fork lift trucks. They don't need rebuilding, almost ever. I have a set
of them that makes 14VDC for emergency power on my ham station. They
only require distilled water, which they do consume naturally with
charging. My cells came out of the Holiday Inn in Orangeburg, SC, in
1973. The date on them is 1958 when the Holiday Inn bought them for
backup power supply for their operator plugged internal telephone system.
When I got them, that system was scrapped for an automatic Bell$outh
exchange. The innkeeper was a ham radio friend of mine.

The cells are like NiCd or Ni-Mh...only 1.2V/cell. I have 12 cells in
series. They are not very efficient batteries, as you can read:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nickel-iron_battery
Waldemar Jungner, a Swede, invented them, but didn't produce them. As
with lots of other devices, Thomas Edison stole the design and called it
his, producing them in 1903. His interest, of course, was to put them in
every home to power the house with Edison's biggest mistake, DC power.
Tesla put an end to that nonsense at Niagara Falls, powering Rochester
and Buffalo with multiphase AC that's in your house today with his
flourescent and vapor arc lamps.

Reliability in constant use, which just kills lead-acid batteries as you
all know, is the reason for NiFe's use in high use forklifts until the
government bureaucrats forced Exide, who bought Edison's company and
patents, out of the nickel battery business in 1972. They made them in
Sumter, SC, where I lived, but made the stupid mistake of polluting the
ground with Nickel, ruining the ground water to peoples' wells for miles
and miles around the plant. Exide paid dearly in court, to the lawyers,
of course, not the well owners who had to fend for themselves with a
pittance. Only China produces Nickel batteries now, unconcerned with
pollution, of course.

Isn't it ironic folks that the US government will take someone to
court for NIckel leakage yet is quite happy to pollute another country
(both Iraq and Afghanistan) with thousands of tons of Depleted Uranium
which is much , much more harmful than NIckel.

DU is so harmful to people and the environment that the US government
often seals it in concrete and buries it deep underground.

It sure as hell does not let it contaminate ground-water.