Looking for a source of used or surplus industrial batteries

rplarry

I had a source here in southern Cal but he hasn't had a 2v industrial batteries in several years. Does anyone know of a company in the So Cal, Arizona, or Nevada area that swaps out battery banks for large companies and will sell the excess to a private individual? The batteries are taken to Mexico and put back into service in off grid homes.
Larry

westbranch

Re: Looking for a source of used or surplus industrial batteries

Send forum member AJBelcher a note, he deals in demobing telecom sites.

softdown

Re: Looking for a source of used or surplus industrial batteries

westbranch wrote: »

Send forum member AJBelcher a note, he deals in demobing telecom sites.

I bought some new Gel batteries that seem to be made for telecom sites. Didn't know hardly anything. Wondering what to do with six 75 lb batteries rated at 109 Ah @ 12V. They were half price so I'm not bleeding badly.

But nobody recommends Gel for solar.

BB.

Re: Looking for a source of used or surplus industrial batteries

Research maximum charging current.

For US GEL batteries, C/20 or 5% rate of charge maximum is pretty standard.

For limited hours of winter sun, 10% minimum rate of charge would usually be better. In my humble opinion.

-Bill

softdown

Re: Looking for a source of used or surplus industrial batteries

Is this saying that a 4% rate of charge is maximum? From http://www.alpha.com:8081/Media/Documents/AlphaCellGXL%2010_C003.pdf
and
http://www.alpha.com:8081/Products/Alphaiui/Cable-Broadband/Outside-Plant-Power/Batteries/AlphaCell-GXL/

I have the 220 GXL batteries. Their self draining rate is almost non-existent.

"AC Ripple Charger: 0.5% RMS or 1.5% of fl oat charge voltage recommended for best results. Max. allowed = 4% P-P"

BB.

Re: Looking for a source of used or surplus industrial batteries

Most "simple" AC battery chargers are a Transformer and Diode/Rectifier that outputs 120 Hz charging voltage (rectified 50 HZ sine waves).

0.04 * 14.4 VDC = 0.576 VAC ripple

Put a DMM set to AC scale across the battery terminals and measure the AC voltage.

My guess is that they fear too high of ripple voltage will give you (for example: 14.4 VDC + 0.576*srt(2) = 15.2 volts peak 120x per second... And could cause gassing -- Which in a GEL battery is very bad. It causes gas bubbles to permanently form in the GEL and reduce the battery's effective capacity/active plate area.

I do not see anything in that specification on how to charge that battery model. Here is a manual for the battery families:

http://www.alpha.com/download/pdf/745680C0002B__W.pdf

It appears that maximum charging current may be 10 amps per 100 AH of battery bank. Their charger is setup to limit maximum current to bulk phase (charger runs at a lower charging current until battery is ~80% full, then voltage is bumped up for last phase of charging.

-Bill