Battery de-sulphater

[binnie]

Andy,
Do you mind sharing a link to the type of Battery Minder that you bought. Thanks binnie (I think as long as it's on topic...administration won't mind)

[adhall]

Binnie:

Sure I'd be happy to pass along the link, bearing in mind that I have no commercial interest in this product or company, etc.

Here is the link to what appears to be the manufacturer's site:

             http://www.thebatteryminder.com/12v133abatteryminder-p-29.html

There are many places that sell these things at competitive prices. I purchased mine through an online vender in SW Oregon.

So far, the only negative I have to say about it is that the battery clips are cheap. They are made of plated steel rather than copper and tend to rust. It would be an easy fix to replace them, of course.

Best regards,
Andy Hall

[Stan]

Just thought I'd pass along this site   http://www.cdstandbypower.com/products/batteries/related/rs_1476.pdf
   These are the batteries I use in my ham shack.  I'm a member of the BC PEP (provincial emergency program) and I run my entire shack off these.  It makes fascinating reading for anyone interested in "real" batteries care and feeding.
stan

[okiezeke]

 At the risk of repeating what Bob has already said,

Long battery life requires regular equalization.  Equalization is a controlled overcharge that dissolves sulphation and boils water.  The water has to be replaced.    Some serious folks equalize daily.  Monthly is minimal care.

The other major battery killer is regular discharge beyond 50% of capacity.  This aggravates sulphation.  You need a good system monitor to watch % of discharge.  They cost a hundred  dollars and up.  If you're depending on a battery bank the monitor will pay for itself.  You need more batteries in your system to insure less than 50% discharge per cycle.  Cold cranking amps is meaningless for a functional battery system.  You need amp hour info.

Cheap batteries will not last.  The plates are too thin, insulators are poorly made.  They're just......cheap.  Batteries sold for auto use will not work well for off grid use.  Good quality golf cart batteries are pretty good.  High end marine batteries are worth the money if you can afford them.  Think 8D size.  Gel or AGM batteries are OK.    Good quality flooded deep cycle conventional batteries will last as long. 

Cheap chargers will kill any battery.  A good charger is computer controlled and uses (at least) 3 stage charging,  a good charger allows you to equalize.  Look to the marine systems.  A good inverter/charger costs a thousand dollars or more.  Shop around, prices vary.  Again, it will pay for itself in the long run.

Sad reality is the cost of a quality battery/inverter/charging system to support off grid living will cost multi thousand dollars.  Folks get 10 years or more on a set of batteries.  You get what you pay for.

Zeke

[Stan]

Zeke, I agree with everything you say about batteries being a.) expensive (unless you get recycled ones) b.) need proper care.  You should, however check with the battery manufacturer for the specs on maintenence.  CD technologies recommends equalization charges every 6 months.  I hook up 1, 75 watt solar panel which will put out 3.2 amps at 19 volts directly to the 12 volt cell bank on a sunny day every spring and fall and bubble the heck out of them for 6 hrs or so.  I then check the voltage in each cell to make sure they are within 1/00th of a volt of each other (they always are) and check/add distilled water as needed.  Not much maintenence for a great set of cells.
Stan

[okiezeke]

Stan,
Reccomendations vary.  They vary so much I wonder if anybody really knows.  Equalizing with the solar panel is probably fine.  19v is on the high side for equalizing, but OK as long as the batterys dont get hot.   Computer controlled chargers limit amperage during equalization to prevent overheating the battery.  The warmer a battery gets, the more current it will accept.  With poorly regulated charging source, batterys have overheated and even exploded.  This would not be a problem with your solar panel since it probably  cant put out enough power to damage the batteries.  Checking voltage of each cell is good.  Could also check specific gravity of electrolyte in each cell.  The goal is for all cells' Sp G to be the same.   We lived on our boat for 5 years, and battery maintenance was one of our favorite topics for discussion.  I'm serious when I wonder if anybody really knows, since opinions/ideas varied widely among the live-aboard crowd.  Most live aboards had expensive inverter-chargers like the xantrex, and they seemed to improve battery life.  Nigel Caldor wrote a good book on the subject, cant remember the title.  Turns out plain old batteries are very complex critters.   Thanks for the feedback.
Zeke

[Stan]

There's a guy in town that works as an engineer for Telus who's main responsibility is keeping the huge aray of wet cells in good shape for any power outages that may occur.  He's been doing it for more than 30 years and I'd guess hes the type of guy you want to ask for any info on how to babysit these things.  You're right my panel at max of 3.2 amps won't seriously over charge my cells.  They all have a "stone" like vent deal on them which is supposed to catch water vapour and let it drain back into each cell.  It must work because I don't have to put much water in them.  They also have a small lid on the top, in one corner which accepts a tall thermomter (which I have) and because the cases are transparent, you can keep close track of the temp.  Very little temp rise of only a degree or two when equalizing them.
stan

[okiezeke]

Stan,
They sound like good batteries.  What kind are they?
Zeke

[Stan]

 http://www.cdstandbypower.com/products/batteries/related/rs_1476.pdf

[mobile_bob]

rolls/surrette suggest equalizing once every 4 or 6 months, but i am a bit more anal and will likely do it once every month.

there are subtle differences in lead acid batteries for sure, batteries used in telecom systems are made to last years in a float mode and deliver as advertised a
few times over the years.

true deep cycle batteries are designed to give repeated deep cycle use over many years and many hundreds if not thousands of cycles.

myself i am likeing the rolls surrette 2 volt or 4 volt cells, the 5000 series which is their best offering, on the expensive side, but well made and a long track record
of building top quality batteries.

i especially like the deep cases, polyglass envelopes to keep the plates from shorting and larger water capacity.

for charging i am likeing the balmar alternator controller, which replaces the regulator in the alternator to give 3 step charging with manuawwel equalization, temp compensation, and alternator/battery temp sensors, and the fact they are programmable and softstart capable (which is also programmable)

i have not seen conclusive proof from an independant lab that would lead to to conclude that any of these desulfator/chargers would do any better of a job maintaining
a set of quality cells, and likely fall far short of what a well programmed balmar and good maintenance would accomplish.

the nice thing is you can program the controller to do precisely what the battery manufacture recommends for charging their batteries by type, size, use etc.
there is no fixed charger/desulfator that is going to come anywhere close to that sort of precision.

bob g

[rmchambers]

In the flying club I'm a member of, we replace any battery that has been completely drained (like if you left the master switch on overnight) since we fly the planes in the clouds and a battery that has been fully discharged probably won't last as long running "critical devices" in the soup if the alternator (or belt) fails.  I've taken a few of these batteries home to play with and have had some decent luck getting them back to life.  There was one however that I believe had one bad cell (12v) as it constantly would drop to 10v once a load was put across it.  Unfortunately I recycled it so I don't have it to test anymore but I wonder if a desulphator would have brought this back to life after some rigorous charge thrown at it.  I'd never use it in a plane again but they are handy to have around for various testing projects or as a backup bank to my Trojans on the inverter.

Speaking of which, I got a Trace Inverter and 4 Trojan T-105's a while back, the age of the batteries is unknown but the last time we had an extended outage the bank and inverter ran some computer equipment,the fish tank, and a fluorescent light off and on for about 12 hours which in my book was a pretty good lifetime.

My next lead-acid purchase is going to be 4 T-125 batteries which I can pick up on the way to my sisters house from a distributor so that makes things a bit cheaper for me.  Since I don't know about the health of the "old" batteries I'm going to keep the two banks separate using a 600 amp switch.  The idea being to get the new batteries installed in their plastic boxes and then turn the switch (which has a 1, 1+2, 2, off settings)  from the old bank to the new/old bank, then the new bank only and let the Trace do a bulk/absorbtion/float charge and get them up to 100% charge.  I then have a couple of options to keep things charged.  1. manually change the switch from 1 to 2 every so often and only put it on 1+2 during an outage, or leave the inverter on the new bank and get a desulphating charger and leave it across the old set. My bank is 24V so I'd have to do it two batts at a time.

My new and improved electric bill arrived yesterday which reflects half a month at my new electric pricing, next month is going to be disgusting.  My wife has said "time for you to research solar roof shingles" as she likes the look of those over the common roof panels.  I'm not sure what the power output of those are compared to the panels, it might work out.  At least she's on board with my plans 

Robert

[Technonut]

I am pretty certain that the Battery Life saver http://www.batterylifesaver.com/battery-life-saver-test.html bought my battery bank an extra 1 year + of useful life. It did bring the specific gravity up after a few months of use. This was with 12 Trojan T-105's in 3 banks of 4 batteries. (24V) I just retired the Trojans a couple of months ago. I originally put them into use in 1999, along with a Trace 4024 inverter....

I have since stepped-up to a 20 (soon to be 24) battery bank of Interstate U2200's. (232 Amp Hour battery) In the spring, I have 10 180 Watt Sharp solar panels to install, along with 2 Outback MX-60 charge controllers. My roof does not face south, so I had mounting racks made to mount on the back of my home. (True southern exposure   )     

The biggest pain-in-the-ass for me is battery watering. I have a power-vented battery box that I built in my basement, and it was a chore sometimes to open the box, remove caps, and water the cells. I have since moved-up to an improved watering systen that has been a godsend... http://janwp.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=CTGY&Store_Code=JANWP&Category_Code=BWS... Expensive, but worth it to me...

I am slowly putting together a biodiesel processor with a plan to run some AC in the summer, and a 24 volt charger from either my GM-90 6/1or Metro 6/1. My Trace 4024 does a fine job of charging and equalizing the bank, but I really do not want to chance running biodiesel in my Isuzu genset. The Isuzu is my heavy-duty SHTF genset... I have it wired to the 4024. It automatically starts when the battery bank gets to my set level of 24V... It also excercises the Isuzu once every two weeks.

Sorry for the rambling... If anyone is interested enough, I can start a dedicated thread....

Anyway... You can bet the Battery Life Saver is connected to my new bank....

[Stan]

Don't forget that when you desuphinate or equalize or even do a deep discharge and recharge, you are breaking off small xytals of lead/cad etc. that could grow and short plates out.  When these small xtals are broken off and fall to the bottom of the battery, they build up and in time short out plates from the bottom.  One measure of a "good" battery (and yes, there are many more) is "how much clear space is there at the bottom of your battery before the crud starts touching/shorting the bottom of the plates.  You're right about the clear cases, they let you actually see what's going on down there.

I'm having trouble posting this morning.

Bob, the telecom batteries aren't rated for long periods of float, they have to be able to give up their maximum rated amount of amps per hour in case of need.  The maintenence procedure drains them down to their maximum on a regular basis which in the case of mine is 8 hours at 30 amps.  The large thick plates with wide spaces between them and lots of space at the bottom of the case makes this possible.  The are recycled every ten years only because there's a law that madates that, and they routinely are still as good as new at the end of their 10 year official life.  You should be able to get another 10 years out of them at least.
Stan

[rmchambers]

I don't think we need a separate thread, since most of the use of batteries in any great amounts is storage for inverter use.  It sounds like you have a comprehensive system which is impressive. 

I'm hoping to get some solar as well and take advantages of grants and tax breaks.

I keep an eye on my electrolyte level but recently have purchased some water-miser caps which re-constitute the expelled vapor back into liquid and drip it into the cell.  They also have flip caps which make checking and adding water easier than unscrewing the original caps.

Every once in a while I'll give the batteries a thump with side of my fist which causes a good gurgling/bubbling noise and I use the inverters equalize setting every month or two.

My biggest annoyance now is getting extra runs between my inverter "area" and the main panel since the basement is finished in that area and I don't want to tear it all up.  I guess I'm going to have to make a couple of little holes in the sheetrock and add some inspection doors to help with the cable pulling operation.

The end result for me will be a heavy run between my garage where the gen is going to live and the main panel, a whole house transfer switch.  A heavy run from a breaker in the panel to my inverter area (to feed it) and another heavy run back from the inverter to the "critical" subpanel.

At present I only have the 1 inverter so I only have backup capability for 120V (no transformers).  If I pull enough of the right kind of cable I could always upgrade to bigger (2) inverters and gang them together and make a 220 backup scenario without doing any more wiring work.

All it takes is money and time.... neither of which I seem to have enough of.

Robert

[LMWatBullRun]

I have heard about telecommunication batteries being surplused, and I am looking for such things, but really haven't any idea where to look.  Does anyone have any suggestions?  Eventually I'd like to have around 1000 AH of storage at 48 volts nominal.  EIther Dekaa or Exide, I forget which, make a 2volt 1000 AH cell, but obviously that gets into some bucks.  If I could find some nice big telco batteries that would be great.

I can get 6 volt 110 AH golf cart batts locally for around $56, which isn't bad, but they are only 110 AH, and the most they say you ought to parallel is 3 strings, which is only 330 AH.

I looked at the Interstate battery site and they have golf cart batts that go up to around 375AH 6v (the UL16) and the weight is manageable at 110 pounds each, but I'm guessing that these batteries probably run a couple hundred each.  Which brings me back to my earrlier point-

Where do you find telecomm batteries?