Thread: Interesting battery information

Try batteryuniversity.com

Lots of good information for the beginner

Battery Bible is another one. Use your Google.

I worked for OTC, then Telstra after we were merged. We ripped out the wet cells when I was managing the Broadway and Paddington buildings and replaced them with sealed units. The plant guys worked for me.

We had large UPS systems to backup the 240VAC gear. Imagine the embarrassment when, after a power failure, the UPS didn't hold up long enough for the standby generator to come on line (less than a minute). The batteries in the UPS were shot. When we checked the batteries in Perth, we found they were the same. That's when we started measuring ripple on the batteries.

The batteries were Fulman.

I installed the start batteries on the generators at Paddington quite a while ago.
At least they worked to start the gen sets.Sorry about the UPS. IEEE recommends testing the UPS batts on an annual basis, however it is never done.
Try doing that at a nuclear power station or a reactor. Hello Chernoble.

Fulman wet cells are not too bad. Fulman sealed I would not recommend.
Usually Fulmen cells arrive with the complete UPS equipment that is purchased from France/overseas and subsequently has no local support. I make lots of service calls that way.

I agree with most of what has been refuted, however on the point of different size batteries being connected together, the ability of the smaller unit to kill the bigger unit does happen.
I had an N50Z that was only 18months old and I added an N70ZZ as a second unit connected direct to the N50Z to increase starting capacity etc etc. The batteries equalised over a period of time and after less than 8 or so months, both started to drop off considerably. After 2 years, it would struggle to start.
I took the older smaller unit out, replaced it with a matching unit to the larger and put the previous N70ZZ on charge with new acid and INOX etc etc.
The N70ZZ had already started to sulfate due to the older unit killing it and yet again in the same timeframe, the N70ZZ failed and started killing the newest unit.
I replaced both recently with 2 Supercharge Allrounders and have not had one little bit of drop in either voltage or amps as it still cranks over as fast as it did when they went in.

But yes, these "experts" are there to gain sales and get word of mouth business "coz this guy knows everything about batteries.." FFS, they're Sales Reps.........

Cheers

Andrew

Hi lovemyrangie, while I can’t give you a reason for why your specific set up failed, I can only go on the feed back of my many thousands of customers who don’t have such problems.

I’ll explain, in basic, how my Smart Chargers work so you can then see where I base my experience.

Unlike all other controllers, my dual battery controllers do NOT separate the cranking battery from the Auxiliary battery(s) after the motor is turned off.

The batteries remain connected until the common voltage drops bellow 12 volts.

Now, in most cases, the vehicles are the owners every day drive and as it can easily take a month or more for the batteries to self discharge below 12 volts and as the majority of my customers rarely leave their vehicles unused for more than 3 days at the longest, the two ( or more ) batteries are connected in parallel for MANY YEARS at a time and the feed back is now showing that their batteries are actually lasting longer than is usually expected and I might also point out that very, VERY few of my customers set ups comprise two identical batteries.

I don’t give a damn what the so called experts say, from 2 decades of hands on experience and thousands and thousands of satisfied customers, who’s batteries are connected in parallel for years at a time, the EX-SPERTS are full of B/S.

Originally Posted by Hoodoo Brown

I installed the start batteries on the generators at Paddington quite a while ago.
At least they worked to start the gen sets.

I wonder if we ever met? I tried to meet all the big contractors. I went down to one job and found a long time friend I hadn't seen for years. We used to fly model helicopters together. His name was Barry Neaton and worked for a battery supplier (Exide, I think). They were installing new sealed batteries after we pulled out the wet cells.

Originally Posted by Hoodoo Brown

Sorry about the UPS. IEEE recommends testing the UPS batts on an annual basis, however it is never done.
Try doing that at a nuclear power station or a reactor. Hello Chernoble.

I took over the building managrement not long before the failure. We did regular load testing.

Originally Posted by Hoodoo Brown

Fulman wet cells are not too bad. Fulman sealed I would not recommend.
Usually Fulmen cells arrive with the complete UPS equipment that is purchased from France/overseas and subsequently has no local support. I make lots of service calls that way.

They were Fulman sealed. I can't think of the brand of UPS - thought it was an Australian brand - or at least sold with an Australian name.

After Telecom took over and pushed OTC people out (after the merger and renaming as Telstra) and stuffed everything, they gave the building management to Transfield so it went backwards from then on. I lost all my plant staff, cleaners, etc., and went back to my old job of submarine cable maintenance, fisheries liaison, litigation involving commercial fishermen, maintenance ship contracts, etc. so I lost a lot of building maintenance contact (although I was still involved).

I loved the site/building management job - dealing with lawyers wasn't the same. Being physically threatened by commercial fishermen in meetings was, umm, interesting! At least dealing with AFMA was good, all the people I dealt with there were really good.

Originally Posted by drivesafe

Hi lovemyrangie, while I can’t give you a reason for why your specific set up failed, I can only go on the feed back of my many thousands of customers who don’t have such problems.

I’ll explain, in basic, how my Smart Chargers work so you can then see where I base my experience.

Unlike all other controllers, my dual battery controllers do NOT separate the cranking battery from the Auxiliary battery(s) after the motor is turned off.

The batteries remain connected until the common voltage drops bellow 12 volts.

Now, in most cases, the vehicles are the owners every day drive and as it can easily take a month or more for the batteries to self discharge below 12 volts and as the majority of my customers rarely leave their vehicles unused for more than 3 days at the longest, the two ( or more ) batteries are connected in parallel for MANY YEARS at a time and the feed back is now showing that their batteries are actually lasting longer than is usually expected and I might also point out that very, VERY few of my customers set ups comprise two identical batteries.

I don’t give a damn what the so called experts say, from 2 decades of hands on experience and thousands and thousands of satisfied customers, who’s batteries are connected in parallel for years at a time, the EX-SPERTS are full of B/S.

G'day drivesafe, so how long would you expect this set up to last running a fridge, inverter and some lights before you lost power and would be unable to start the car?
What safegaurds are there?
Then how long to recharge?
Thanks for your thoughts,
Cheers Lionel

Hi Lionel, as posted above, my dual battery controllers isolate at 12 volts. This means the cranking battery is left with a 50% SoC ( State of Charge ) and older vehicle can be started with batteries with 11.75 volts and most modern vehicles can be started from batteries with as little as 11 volts, so there is no problem with isolating the cranking battery at 12 volts.

Because my controllers share the load over both batteries, this means that neither battery is as low as would be the case with an ordinary dual battery set up with only the auxiliary battery providing all the power, so you will have fully charged batteries in a shorter time as both batteries are charged at the same time.

Again because my controllers share the load over both batteries, the operating time before you need to recharge the auxiliary battery is, on average, 50% longer than with ordinary dual battery set ups, so if you know how long your set up works, say it’s work for two days, then with my systems, your system will operate for at least 3 days, before needing to recharge.

My controllers have a number of other benefits, including the fact that because your auxiliary battery is not worked as hard as it would with any other dual battery controller, auxiliary batteries tend to last longer when used with my gear.