Author Topic: Battery Storage  (Read 6329 times)

Tugger

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Battery Storage
« on: June 17, 2008, 03:55:04 AM »
Sometimes it take me awhile to get around to building things..
If a wet cell battery was stored without any acid in it at all, will it last forever?
And if so when you add the acid will it be in a fully charged state?
Are these batteries available for purchase without acid?
Cheers
Tugger

Doug

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Re: Battery Storage
« Reply #1 on: June 17, 2008, 04:03:11 AM »
Your talking about something called a dry charge and yes many batteries are shipped that way and sit on a shelf for years untill someone buys them.

Best practice as I recall was to charge them for about an hour after you added the electrolite before you put them in cars. But they are in what is considered fully charged and would start a car as soon as the acid was added and they were put in.

Not sure how long they can last kept dry and clean in that state but I would think years and years....
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mobile_bob

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Re: Battery Storage
« Reply #2 on: June 17, 2008, 06:07:10 AM »
rolls/surette claims a shelf life of 5 years without any degradation of capacity and up to 10 years with some degradation
how much i could not get a good answer on.

the batteries are built, put on huge charging racks, fully charged, drained and iirc flushed with distilled water
and sealed with airtight plugs,, i remember somewhere that the cells are purged with nitrogen or some other inert gas
to eliminate oxygen, but i am not sure if rolls does the gas purge or not.

they produce about 2/3 of their batteries to be shipped dry i am told.

you then put the electrolyte into them, charge them for an hour or something i don't recall the exact recommendation
and then put them through about 30 deep cycles to open the pores in the plates and then they are up for continuous use.

that was from there engineering dept from a phone call i placed some years ago.

things might have changed, but i doubt it.

bob g
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Tugger

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Re: Battery Storage
« Reply #3 on: June 17, 2008, 11:18:45 PM »
Could batteries that have been used but need to be stored for several years take advantage of this method?

Quote
fully charged, drained and iirc flushed with distilled water
and sealed with airtight plugs,, i remember somewhere that the cells are purged with nitrogen or some other inert gas
to eliminate oxygen

Cheers
Tugger

mobile_bob

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Re: Battery Storage
« Reply #4 on: June 18, 2008, 02:41:35 AM »
i would think it would work, but would be hesitant to try it on expensive batteries unless i had no other way of perserving them.

and i can see the possibility of such a need arrising myself, such as

you get a killer deal on a set of batteries but cannot put them into service for a number of years, under that circumstance
i might give it a try after first calling a manufacture such as rolls/surrette or trojan to get some input on how to do it properly.

i remember years ago we used to get our truck batteries shipped dry, they had plastic plugs down in the cap holes that you pryed out
and then filled with electrolyte.

i would expect one would need some form of plastic plug that fits nice and tight, and maybe purge the cells with nitrogen if
the manufacture supported that method or with whatever inert gas they recommended.

iirc you need to get the air out, effectively removing the oxygen so the plates don't oxidize over time.

seems to me it ought to work :)

just be sure to fully charge the cell, drain the electolyte and flush them with distilled and demineralized water
then purge with an appropriate inert gas and plug the cells.  sure seems like it ought to work.

hmmm,, interesting :)

i have put off buying batteries over the last few years knowing that it will be a few more years before i would be putting them
into service, i surely would not want wet cells stored long term (years) and figured i would go the dry cell batteries for extended storage.

i wonder why it wouldn't work?

good question :)

bob g
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mobile_bob

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Re: Battery Storage
« Reply #5 on: June 18, 2008, 02:48:05 AM »
another thought on long term storage of used cells
i wonder if you could just fully charge them, drain the electolyte
and refill them with distilled water and then store them long term leaving water in them?

then drain them and refill with electolyte when you are ready to put them back into service.

i don't remember reading anything about this method, maybe it might work as well?

be interesting to give it a try on maybe a sam's club golf cart battery as an experiment
to see what the outcome might be after a year in storage?

one thing for sure if it would work (either method) it opens up another set of options that most folks never
think about.

i know that i have passed on some good used batteries for the same reason, i am not ready to use them
and figure they would suffer being stored obviously and to a lessor extent if i maintained a trickle charge and monitored them
which i really didn't want to fret about over a few years.

it would be nice to know if either method would work, sure would make perserving batteries in a way that a guy
could just put them away and not have to fuss with monitoring and charging them.

bob g
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wormshoe

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Re: Battery Storage
« Reply #6 on: June 18, 2008, 04:36:14 AM »
Your talking about something called a dry charge and yes many batteries are shipped that way and sit on a shelf for years untill someone buys them.

Not sure how long they can last kept dry and clean in that state but I would think years and years....

In the States, Delco was the only car battery manufacturer  ??? to manufacture Dry Charged Batteries during the sixties.  I had such a battery sit dry for almost six years and it was as good as new. Delco had a great idea.  It was a sad day when they stopped making them....folks getting injured when handling the acid....this is the reason I was given for them leaving the market.

captfred

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Re: Battery Storage
« Reply #7 on: June 18, 2008, 07:04:51 AM »
One of the companies I drive for just bought a bunch of Dyno brand T105's dry to  be shipped out this way and used sometime down the road when a bank of house batteries go south.  I believe batteries without electrolyte are not considered hazmat when shipping - plan on a visit to our supplier next week when I'm in town to find out.

mobile_bob

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Re: Battery Storage
« Reply #8 on: July 08, 2008, 07:01:31 AM »
fwiw

i found a reference from 1920 on battery long term storage

"if you fully charge the battery, noting that all cells are at peak specific gravity, then drain the electrolyte, followed
by refilling with clean distilled water, let it sit for 12/24 hours and then drain out the water, the battery can be store indefinitely"

now this was 1920 the battery chemistry has not changed but other components have such as the wood seperators they used then
are now composite/fiber, which one would think should fair far better dried out that would wood seperators.

"to reactivate you simply put the electrolyte back into the cells and charge for a few hours and put the cell back in service"

so from this and what i have learned from rolls/surrette on the manufacture of dry shipped cells, one might conclude that if he was to run
into a screaming good deal on a battery set but could not use them in the near future, there is a way of preserving them for future use.

opens up the door to more possibilities in my opinion.

just thought i would pass this along

bob g
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captfred

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Re: Battery Storage
« Reply #9 on: July 08, 2008, 07:55:52 AM »
Thanks Bob, think it might be a way to go to "put up" some batteries for future use.

Cheers, Fred