Edison NiFe batteries

Tecnodave

Softdown,

This is right up my alley, I'm currently using a 14 year old bank of L-16 S-530's that were bought on the way to the scrapyard. They had a total of 0.05 volts as a set of four. I hooked 4 Seimens SM-55 panels in series ..84 volts@3.15 amps...........to the batteries in series, no controller, small fuse at 5 amps and waited, after several weeks starting to show good hope, end of 4 weeks, 24.0 volts and all cells within .020 of each other. Hooked up Kid with 4 Seimens in Series.......walla full recovery. They have more capacity than my 6 year old Interstate L-16 set bought new!

Steve Higgins@Rolls verified that my Surettes were "shipped out the door" June 26, 2005

theory here.....throttle current with a limited current power supply but allow the voltage to go high to burn off the sulfates. This is based on 1950's battery shop "String chargers" that used a "Tungar bulb" rectifier (basically a mercury vapor diode bulb much like a street lamp but with a dunce cap) these had very high internal resistance, throttling the current.

I did do time at Alaska Husky Battery in Anchorage, and Fairbanks building batteries for the Artic cold, learned a lot there, including the high voltage throttled current process. We used 220 volts DC to string charge about 10-15 batteries in series.

We built FLA's with a very high ratio of lead to electrolyte and very high s.g. of 1.320 at full charge. These "Artic" batteries were to be used in winter only, they would not stand the underhood temperatures of Fairbanks 100 degree summers. They would easily last 3 years in the cold, not freeze at 70 below as seen in Fairbanks and interior Alaska and start your car at 70 degrees below Fahrenheit .

The "Employment Prevention Agency" ran them out of business, They moved to Moscow,Russia. They have major contracts with the Russiam government.........good job EPA

I borrowed that term from a member here, very approiate!

david

westbranch

Softdown, Dave and I have WET NiCd cells, not the sealed ones (DRY) used for power tools. lots to read in the WiKi

more from same WIKI

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nickel%E2%80%93cadmium_battery

Comparison with other batteries..... near the bottom.

One note I can think of while reading is that the writer(s) jumps from one type of NiCd battery to the other type ( wet to dry) quite easily and causes confusion unnecessarily..

softdown

Batteries - if I keep learning about them I will know nothing quite soon!

TPA

Tecnodave

I have 8 very old S-530s (48V setup) in basically the same condition. Can you give some idea of the voltage and current limits you would use under the circumstances you describe? Some basic guidelines and limits if I am to try this. Maybe a set of "per cell" values would work better.

Tecnodave

TPA,

are these batteries in service now? Can you pull them out of service for a while to restore? Gotta go do some electrical debugging so I won't be back on until after 5-6 o'clock PST

TPA

No, they have not been in service for a very, very long time. I don't really need to use them, but if they could be made serviceable I can find a use for them. They have very low cycles, they just got neglected and went unused for years.

Tecnodave

TPA,

I recommend using a solar panel or several. Connect all the batteries in series. Connect about 150-200 volts of panels in series. About 4 times the maximum charge voltage desired. Connect panels directly to batteries with only a 10 amp or so quick blowing fuse. The batteries will pull the p.v. Output down to battery voltage . The high voltage is used to remove the sulfations. Wait.........wait....it takes time. Read voltage across each battery, chart it, read specific gravity and record. This procedure will not damage the panels or batteries. It took 30 days to recover my S-530's to 24.0 volts and two more weeks spare time in equilation to fully recover them. Get a turkey baster and use it to pump the acid up and down in the cells. In very tall batteries the acid sinks to the bottom and leaves the water on the top.This concentrated acid at the bottom eats the plates at the bottom if left too long, lots of luck with it When I recovered my set I used Seimens SM-55 55 watt "12 volt " panels, 3.15 amp at 18.9 volts at maximum power, 21 volts open circuit, keep the amperage in this part down to 10 amps or so.

AzSun

Hello,

In Post #6 dated October 2017, Sylphhawkins made reference to a Thomas Edison battery patent that I wish to try. He did not give the patent number and I am having no luck finding it. His comment is quoted below. Patent US821625 describes a similar process for cleaning the positive plate elements but the one Sylph describes relates to the negative plate elements. The Anode/Cathode cable connections are different between the two methods. If anyone knows anything about this patent or has a way to contact Sylph please let me know.

Thank-you!

Quote:  "One of Edison's later revised patents on the NiFe cell specifically mentions using the steel metal case to act as an electrode when performing a "Refreshing charge cycle", where the nickel and iron electrodes are shorted/joined together and are charged as a single + electrode, with the steel case becoming the new - negative electrode. This process helps to push out the Carbonates from the iron due to the positive charge effect on the plate, and transfers the carbonates to the outside case. You then give them quite a sloshing and pour out the electrolyte and replace with fresh KOH."

Dave Angelini

https://ironedison.com/   might be of help

AzSun

I have a small "hobbyist" solar system powering my garage. Over the years I have gone thru a few 100 AH deep cycle lead acid batteries.

After the last one died I thought I would try a LiFeP04 battery. The chosen equivalent was disappointing. The internal BMS was prematurely shutting down before fully charged. I suspect there was an internal cell imbalance and it was ending the charge due to a single cell reaching voltage limit. I returned it and contemplated my next move.

I purchase some original Edison nickel iron batteries from a salvage yard in 1982. They have been sitting on a shelf, empty of electrolyte  since then. After spending some time letting each cell soak after adding distilled water, draining, and refilling with a batch of home-brew electrolyte, I put these 81 year old cells back in service. Testing shows their capacity has diminished to about 35% of new. The charge efficiency is identical to that of their new rating. I currently am getting around 110 AH and have loaded the bank to over 125 amps powering some motor loads. Both values exceed the capability of the one I returned. It's been a fun and somewhat amusing project.

BB.

Neat setup... I do have a question or two... Have you tried the "regeneration/recovery" of the cells as above to clean up the plates?

Also, I wonder about your watering system... if there is "electrolyte" in the plastic tubes--I wonder if there is some self discharging current between cells being conducted through the "auto watering" system?

I guess you can buy/borrow a DC Current Clamp DMM and see if you can measure and current flow through the plastic tubes (just "clamp" the Clamp meter around one of the tubes at a time)... Example of a low cost/good enough AC+DC Current Clamp DMM:

https://www.amazon.com/UNI-T-Digital-Handheld-Resistance-Capacitance/dp/B0188WD1NE

-Bill

AzSun

Hello,

The tubes are a venting system. The half sphere rubber "check valves" on the original caps have hardened somewhat and do not seal perfectly. At the end of the manifold under the red cap is a light weight plastic ball that seems to seal quite well. As these cells out gas some pretty much 24 hours a day, little if any Co2 can get back into the electrolyte. I did try Edison's "reverse charge" patent on some of  cells. It does work. It improved their capacity by about 30 %. The weaker ones that were around 75 - 78 AH initially, are now now in the 105-110 AH range. There is another patent that is invasive. It involves cutting the top off the metal case, removing the positive plates, then soaking them in hot glycerine for a few days. This method is supposed to recover much more capacity than the reverse charge method. Being these cells are approaching antique status, I decided to be happy with the greater than 100AH results. It would be sad to return the plates to a welded polypropylene case. I do have a set of plates from the only damaged cell I have. Some day might try it.

Later.

        

BB.

Thank you AzSun--That is a venting system. Makes much more sense.

-Bill

Dave Angelini

Azsun, it might be worth searching the forum here for Mikes post on recovering the battery. He might have posted it on another forum.

Not sure but Mike did pass last fall. mike95490 Solar Expert Posts: 9,583 ✭✭✭✭✭