| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| Victor |
Posted - 26/04/2008 : 14:21:41
Above is an image of FREE batteries I recently picked up from a demolition job. I have 12 Two Volt battery packs and they are chloride ones. I think they are only around 10 years old and are well charged in their old installation.No plate damage. they were designed to power a small 24 volt light system in the event of a mains failure.
Now that I have the batteries i`m wondering if I`m better splitting them up into a two groups of 6 batteries and charging them with 2 ametek wind turbines in my garden hut....
My question to the forum now is.....
How do you charge your batteries? How many of you guys and girls have any experience of charging these high capacity 2 volt cells? Are my cells going to be harder to charge as there is more cells instead of one big cell like a 12 volt 100amp battery....
Anyway!! I think I have another great find!! I`ll keep them topped up for now until I find the best way of charging them up...
At the moment I`m hopeing to charge them using 2 ametek wind turbines when I get them built and also intend to get a large solar cell and hopefully finish my alternative energy system this year.....
I was also lucky to get 16 downlighters similar to what superwindy has in his livingroom for powering LED lights.....
I hope to use the FREE power for only lighting my house like the hall and kitchen and livingroom....I currently spend around 4-5 hours a night at home now due to the hours I`m working and I think my batteries will cope with a few hours light every night.....
Anyway!! That`s my idea for alternative energy and hopefully you can all give me advice on setting up these batteries in a configuration that the wind turbines and future solar cell will be able to charge them and give a small yield of electricity for lighting purposes....
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| 7 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| fungus |
Posted - 27/04/2008 : 11:00:51
Victor; to be honest I would have both ametek's charging one battery bank, depending on the capacity of the batteries;
The max output of an ametek is about 10A, and you want to aim for about C/20 (a charging rate of the capacity divided by 20) , so if these cells turned out to be about 200ah then one ametek per string should work quite well, if they are larger, say 400ah, then I'd put both ametek's on one string. Self-discharge can be quite high on these batteries and wasting it on charging two different battery banks might not be too good. Is there any markings of the capacity on the batteries or the labels? It might be good to do a rough measurement of how much capacity they still have left; drain them down to 10.5V per string with a load and put them on a constant current charger and see how long they take to come back up to full. You might also want to do an equalizing charge with these; bring them up to 15V, at which point they will start bubbling, and keep them at that voltage for a few hours. |
| gholt |
Posted - 27/04/2008 : 01:55:32
Victor,
You scored big time!
Lead acid battery cells are 2+ volts according to the electric potential of the galvanic cell depending on which specific chemistry (metals and salts) is involved. This is the practical limitation to the specific chemistry of each battery type.
There is an example of this chemistry and electric potential calculation here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galvanic_cell
If you don't fall asleep reading that one, you can read about the Nernst equation used to calculate the electromotive force of an electrochemical cell here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nernst_equation
Warning: Don't read this when operating heavy machinery or driving a vehicle.
G. |
| Victor |
Posted - 26/04/2008 : 20:50:55
Thanks for the useful advice and comments.
Fungus - I`ll take your advice and fill them up to the correct level using the de inoised dfistilled water on monday..
Ben - you are right!! I`m lucky to have got my hands on these batteries and they aree are in perfect working order taken off the supply a few days ago..
This evening I made a good shelf in the garden hut and seperated the batteries into two small groups for 12 volt charging.... For the next few weeks i`ll have to charge them using a small charger to keep them trickle charged until I get the turbines up and running....
for now I`m very happy with the find and it`s a real boost for me into alternative energy.....
Buying new batteries seem to cost a fortune and really I could not afford that..
I was doing well with the 2 dynohubs charging two small 20 amp hour batteries...They did do the job,but I`ll get a better yield with stronger ametek turbines and decent storage batteries.....
thanks again everyone for your help.... |
| gotwind |
Posted - 26/04/2008 : 17:03:34
As i see it,
12v batteries (Car or deep cycle)are also simply made up of six 2 volt cells connected in series to achieve 12 volts.
I'm not entirely sure why a cell is 2 volts - maybe someone can explain this.
Charging at 12v would be best if you have good wind up in bonnie Scotland.
Image for fun 
Nice free find by the way.
Ben. |
| fungus |
Posted - 26/04/2008 : 17:02:32
very nice .. first thing I would do is fill them with water, looking at the picture I can see that quite a few of the cells are below the min fill line .. only use distilled water.
They look very large batteries, I'm guessing 400ah+ , do they have any markings on them? |
| Victor |
Posted - 26/04/2008 : 16:53:47
I`m impressed with your LED setup SuperWindy.. Luckily I was able to strip just under 20 Gu10 spotlight fittings from an old commercial kitchen area this week during a building demolition.
I`m going to use those fittings for installing the LEDS into.. If I find the LED lights bright enough I`m intending to fit false ceiling in my hall because it`s the darkest place in my house.....
I have a lot of work to do this year but I now feel i`m getting somewhere....Especially with the boost from the batteries and the free light fittings.....
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| super windy |
Posted - 26/04/2008 : 16:45:04
Hi victor, great find by the way, they seem to hold a good amps per hour anyway, I connected my new watts up meter to my living room lightning circuit, which consists of 6 spotlights of 31 leds per spotlight, and here is the amazing thing, they only consume 4.1 watts normal, 4.7 watts peak, o.37amps peak, so has you can see they consume very little and provide very good power, so I think have a look at the amps per battery and calculate after you join them up for 12volts, the total amps.
then from the total amps in your battery take away 20%, to see how many amps you can use to only discharge the bank to a reasonable level, or another way is to never discharge down past 12.5v.
That is the approach that I use, but has everyone knows here I am probably the most dumbest electrically minded person, so take this advice with a pinch of salt, ghurd, ben and others will give you their advice, but that is how I do it anyway, and it seems to work very good, (so far ).
cheerio, and once again a very good find
Super windy |
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