On Mon, 18 Apr 2005 19:33:47 -0400, Capt. Neal®
wrote:


"Steve Firth" wrote in message .. .
Capt. Neal® wrote:

Never, at any time, does electricity flow THROUGH the internals of a battery

Utter ********.


Utter truth. A lead/acid yacht battery stores electrical potential in the plates via chemical reaction.
If there was a circuit within the battery it would not take or store a charge.


CN

Maybe you would like to explain to us how current gets from one cell
in a battery to the next so that each cell gets charged when a charger
is hooked to the battery.

I am also still waiting for you to explain how one discharged cell in
a battery gets charged from the other cells in the battery by only
putting a load on the battery. As I am sure you know that discharged
cell will be trying to get charged with it's positive terminal hooked
to the negative terminal of the cell that is supposed to be doing the
charging.

Tell us again how that works.

Regards
Gary

Ok I've risen to the provocation.

You guys have given Neal the validation he seeks by arguing with him and
you've turned a perfectly innocent query into a battleground. As a result he
has managed a troll into uk.rec.sailing which uptill now commonsence has
denied him.

To answer the original query - and all the attempts to explain electrical
theory

Let's make this simple, a battery resists the flow of electricity through
it. Most things resist the flow of electricity, this resistance is
demonstrated by dissipating some of the energy as light (the light bulb), or
heat (the radiant heater) or work (the electric motor). In humans this
resistance is demonstrated by burning (the electric chair). In a battery
this resistance is demonstrated by a chemical reaction that builds up a
charge on one side of the cell, when the capacity of the battery to sustain
that chemical reaction is satiated then the battery dissipates the energy in
heat. In a circuit the battery absorbs energy and shows a high resistance.
What is more a battery isn't really that efficient a lot of the work put in
is wasted as a by-product of the chemical reaction (heat, hydrogen given off
etc)

Resistance is often regarded as as wrong thing, because of the english
connation of the word resistence as somehow negative, it isn't it merely
means the more resistance the more work that has been achieved.

At the start of battery technology you had the basic lead acid cell powering
your radio, and once a week little johnny would go to the chemist who would
top up the acid and recharge the battery cell. At this stage the cell was a
simple device that held a few volts charge, and anyway we could see it
bubbling nicely so it must be magic.

Then along can applications that needed more of the magical oomph (had a
greater resistance) so some clever people put a whole sucession of these
strange devices together. In each one they connected the positive (oomph
end) with the -ve (oomphless end). They put Exide on the outside and retired
rich because they had created the modern battery. One can assume mistresses
and debauchery at this point.
The positive result is that if you put 2 oomphs together (one after the
other) you got 2 oomphs (bit like doubling up the number of horses) (but if
you put the oomphs side by side you only got one oomph for twice as long -
analogy is a bugger).

The battery isn't a magical concept, the word walmart on the outside hasn't
somehow made it sacred, it's a number of little cells connected together,
each one reacting to what's passed through it. Each little cell contributing
ther own bit bof oomph to the party.

Now say you've 24 oomphs harnessed together (a 24 Volt circuit) and you only
need 12 oomphs to move your wagon train. Well you can split the two in half
and take the 12 oomphs away, but they will become tired compared to the 12
oomphs you've left unharnessed.

If the world was fair the 12 unused oomphs would share energy with 12 used
oomphs, but they can't (at least for more than a moment) because to put the
energy back into the 12 used oomphs they'd need both the energy to drive the
chemical reation (+heat, hydtogen etc) plus the energy to provide the
replacement oomphs. They haven't got that extra energy so they see the 12
depleted oomphs as a wall they can't climb.

Then along you come with the charger (and the charger wont take no for an
answer it's got an 'effing great diesel engine diesel engine behind it) ,
because all these little cells are in sucession, you are pushing the same
amount of charge through each. The 12 depleted cells take the charge (+waste
a lot of it on heat and hydrogen), the 12 full cells waste all of the
charge (heat,hydrogen) because they can't store anymore oomph. Because the
world is unfair the charger has put a lot more oomph into the circuit (to
provide the energy for the heat, the hydrogen given off, the basic chemical
reaction, plus the energy for the charge that is stored) than you ever get
out of the battery.

A battery only has so much electrolyte (the thing that is reacted upon to
provide the oomph), if that electrolyte is wasted in generating hydogen and
heat then it ain't being used to provide electricity (oomph). So the battery
effectively dies sooner.

In an ideal world where a battery was 100% efficient then it wouldn't matter
if you were taking off 12 volts from a 24 volt cell. But in the real world
that does matter ('cos in that ideal where there was no resistance a battery
couldn't exist, try imagining a battery at absolete zero - where there is no
resistance to drive the reaction to store energy).

Batteries are a bit like Tax, you put in lots more than you get back.

OK

So to answer the original question
- yes your radio will work fine
- no because the battery is inefficient the charge will not fully equalise
- depending on how you charge your batteries, how often you use your 12 volt
circuit you might find yourself having to replace your batteries sooner
-In other words it ain't a proper job, it'll work, at sometime it'll give
someone a problem.

Lets now go back to ignoring Neal, like Alice he can live in his own fantasy
land where only the simplest rules of physics apply.

Capt. Neal® wrote:

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu.../leadacid.html

Higher voltage than a fully charge battery can supply, when applied to the
battery terminals drives the chemical reaction and changes it from
releasing electrons to storing electrons but does not reverse the current as most
dumb engineers claim.

Oh? So how come the little arrow marked "I" (current) has changed
direction between the third and fourth pictures?

Pete

Great anology....i think 'oooph' should become a new lab
standard.
I think CN had one good point...engineers regard batteries as
a two-terminal device with a certain transfer function...chemists
working in the battery industry would see them totally differently.
Norm B

On Tue, 19 Apr 2005 03:39:02 +0100, "Nick Temple-Fry" theP wrote:

Ok I've risen to the provocation.

You guys have given Neal the validation he seeks by arguing with him and
you've turned a perfectly innocent query into a battleground. As a result he
has managed a troll into uk.rec.sailing which uptill now commonsence has
denied him.

To answer the original query - and all the attempts to explain electrical
theory

Let's make this simple, a battery resists the flow of electricity through
it. Most things resist the flow of electricity, this resistance is
demonstrated by dissipating some of the energy as light (the light bulb), or
heat (the radiant heater) or work (the electric motor). In humans this
resistance is demonstrated by burning (the electric chair). In a battery
this resistance is demonstrated by a chemical reaction that builds up a
charge on one side of the cell, when the capacity of the battery to sustain
that chemical reaction is satiated then the battery dissipates the energy in
heat. In a circuit the battery absorbs energy and shows a high resistance.
What is more a battery isn't really that efficient a lot of the work put in
is wasted as a by-product of the chemical reaction (heat, hydrogen given off
etc)

Resistance is often regarded as as wrong thing, because of the english
connation of the word resistence as somehow negative, it isn't it merely
means the more resistance the more work that has been achieved.

At the start of battery technology you had the basic lead acid cell powering
your radio, and once a week little johnny would go to the chemist who would
top up the acid and recharge the battery cell. At this stage the cell was a
simple device that held a few volts charge, and anyway we could see it
bubbling nicely so it must be magic.

Then along can applications that needed more of the magical oomph (had a
greater resistance) so some clever people put a whole sucession of these
strange devices together. In each one they connected the positive (oomph
end) with the -ve (oomphless end). They put Exide on the outside and retired
rich because they had created the modern battery. One can assume mistresses
and debauchery at this point.
The positive result is that if you put 2 oomphs together (one after the
other) you got 2 oomphs (bit like doubling up the number of horses) (but if
you put the oomphs side by side you only got one oomph for twice as long -
analogy is a bugger).

The battery isn't a magical concept, the word walmart on the outside hasn't
somehow made it sacred, it's a number of little cells connected together,
each one reacting to what's passed through it. Each little cell contributing
ther own bit bof oomph to the party.

Now say you've 24 oomphs harnessed together (a 24 Volt circuit) and you only
need 12 oomphs to move your wagon train. Well you can split the two in half
and take the 12 oomphs away, but they will become tired compared to the 12
oomphs you've left unharnessed.

If the world was fair the 12 unused oomphs would share energy with 12 used
oomphs, but they can't (at least for more than a moment) because to put the
energy back into the 12 used oomphs they'd need both the energy to drive the
chemical reation (+heat, hydtogen etc) plus the energy to provide the
replacement oomphs. They haven't got that extra energy so they see the 12
depleted oomphs as a wall they can't climb.

Then along you come with the charger (and the charger wont take no for an
answer it's got an 'effing great diesel engine diesel engine behind it) ,
because all these little cells are in sucession, you are pushing the same
amount of charge through each. The 12 depleted cells take the charge (+waste
a lot of it on heat and hydrogen), the 12 full cells waste all of the
charge (heat,hydrogen) because they can't store anymore oomph. Because the
world is unfair the charger has put a lot more oomph into the circuit (to
provide the energy for the heat, the hydrogen given off, the basic chemical
reaction, plus the energy for the charge that is stored) than you ever get
out of the battery.

A battery only has so much electrolyte (the thing that is reacted upon to
provide the oomph), if that electrolyte is wasted in generating hydogen and
heat then it ain't being used to provide electricity (oomph). So the battery
effectively dies sooner.

In an ideal world where a battery was 100% efficient then it wouldn't matter
if you were taking off 12 volts from a 24 volt cell. But in the real world
that does matter ('cos in that ideal where there was no resistance a battery
couldn't exist, try imagining a battery at absolete zero - where there is no
resistance to drive the reaction to store energy).

Batteries are a bit like Tax, you put in lots more than you get back.

OK

So to answer the original question
- yes your radio will work fine
- no because the battery is inefficient the charge will not fully equalise
- depending on how you charge your batteries, how often you use your 12 volt
circuit you might find yourself having to replace your batteries sooner
-In other words it ain't a proper job, it'll work, at sometime it'll give
someone a problem.

Lets now go back to ignoring Neal, like Alice he can live in his own fantasy
land where only the simplest rules of physics apply.

"Capt. Neal®" wrote in message
...
You are wrong. You cannot run current though a battery backwards. You
charge with a charging
source that has higher voltage than the battery and by wiring it so there
exists a complete
circuit.

When I connect my photovoltaic to my 12v battery the battery takes a
charge because the
photovoltaics operate at 16v at ten amps current. The 16v, being higher
than the 12v in the
batteries causes a chemical reaction to occur between the sponge lead and
the solid lead
and the acid electrolyte and electrons are stored The chemical reaction
reverses when the
photovoltaics are removed and a load placed upon the batteries and
electrons are released.
Current never goes backwards in the battery.

This is a common misconception and I'm very surprised so-called engineers
fall prey to it.

Say Capt'n, why don't you hook up an ampere meter in your circuit and tell
me what sign the reading has when charging and discharging. Or are going to
argue the principle of ammeters too?

Meindert

"Capt. Neal®" wrote in message
...

So even an engineer might understand. . .

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu.../leadacid.html

Engineers look at a battery as a physical object while an electrician
looks
at it as a container for a chemical reactions that store and release
electricity.

Higher voltage than a fully charge battery can supply, when applied to the
battery terminals drives the chemical reaction and changes it from
releasing
electrons to storing electrons but does not reverse the current as most
dumb
engineers claim.

Read the above link carefully and click on all the links and perhaps you
will understand the error of your thinking.

Well, I did. Lucky for me, I studied chemisty as well. And what do I see in
the second picture?
The decomposition of lead and sulphuric acid on the left produces, whait a
minute... electrons!! And wait, what do I see? On the right side, these
electrons are used to combine lead oxide and sulphuric acid into
leadsulphate and water. Sooooo, I see electrons flowing THROUGH the innards
of the battery.
Care to argue with that?

Meindert

Capt. Neal® wrote:

Again, electrons don't move THROUGH the battery.

Correct. Electrons DON'T move through the battery, but charge does.

They only reside
on physically separated plates via chemical reaction (not a circuit).

Incorrect. That's what happens in a capacitor, but not in a battery.

In a capacitor, electrons are stored on one plate and "holes" on the
other, and no electrons move THROUGH the capacitor. Nevertheless charge
APPEARS to move through it because it goes in via one wire and out via
the other, but really the charge is only stored on the plates and does
not travel across the gap. When you DIScharge a capacitor, the charge
comes back out again, but still no charge travels directly from one
plate to the other within the unit.

A battery is different. It also stores charge, but not by accumulating
more and more electrons on one plate and holes on the other, but rather
by arranging for chemical changes to occur not only on both plates, but
also in the electrolyte.

As shown in hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/electric/leadacid.html
which you pointed us to, a charged battery starts off with the electrolyte
of sulphuric acid, i.e. a soup of negative sulphate ions and positive
hydrogen ions, and with PbO2 on one plate and Pb on the other. When
the plates are connected via an external circuit, the sulphate ions are
absorbed equally on each plate, in a reaction which at the Pb end
generates PbSO4 and liberates electrons and H+ ions, and at the PbO2 end
also generates PbSO4 and absorbs electrons and H+ ions. To sustain this
reaction, the electrons travel from one plate to the other on the outside
of the battery, via the circuit wire, while the H+ ions travel from one
plate to the other internally, through the electrolyte.

Therefore charge does travel through the battery. We have a complete
circuit, with external flow of electrons and internal flow of H+ ions.

During charging, the same thing happens, electrons are "pumped" back
into one plate and sucked out of the other, which causes the hydrogen
ions to travel through the electrolyte in the opposite direction to
that in which they travelled while the battery was being discharged.

Nick Temple-Fry wrote:

Resistance is often regarded as as wrong thing, because of the english
connation of the word resistence as somehow negative, it isn't it merely
means the more resistance the more work that has been achieved.

You seem to be confusing more with less. More resistance means less current
and less work. Less resistance means more current and more work.

"Meindert Sprang" wrote in message ...

The charge of a battery is the product of current x time.

Well, that's wrong for a start. Some of the current may have been used
to electrolyse water ...

Ian

In article ,
Capt. Neal® the biggest dfufus walking wrote:

Higher voltage than a fully charge battery can supply, when applied to the
battery terminals drives the chemical reaction and changes it from releasing
electrons to storing electrons but does not reverse the current as most dumb
engineers claim.

I suppose that you think that a charged battery has more electrons in it
than a discharged battery? Right? Is this what your saying above?
Please explain, so that we all can undestand what you exact preception
of this point is.



Bruce in alaska
--
add a 2 before @