sovielenamen
Active Member
Found this webpage for DIY lead acid batteries. and thought it might be interesting. In special the book from 1922 on the page is a goldmine for everybody interested in the topic.
Here the direct link to the detailed table of contents.
I remembered that I have seen old battery assemblies which were used in industry for a long time up into the 1970's at least which were very simple and most buildt before WWII or shortly after. Wooden troughs mostly and they looked not expensive at all but nevertheless they must have worked nicely for a very long time, not 10 or 15 years and not 2000 cycles but as many as needed and that was more.
It is the maintenance trap. And the automobile. Electricity generation and storage is a high maintenance task, it is just outsourced to the supplier. Now coming to the consumer it is expected to be maintenance free and idiot proofed. At a competitive price. This is a bit to much demanded. Lead batteries were very common for farms and special kinds for the purpose were buildt and they were different from car-batteries. With due maintenance there was no restriction on lifetime, 25 years or more were normal. And they were cheap compared to what is sold now.
If one is willing to do the maintenance oneself or to hire somebody to do it, it is not complicated, anybody with a very basic technical understanding can be trained to do it in no time, and unskilled cheap labor is plenty in SA, then battery power for a fraction of the costs seems well possible.
A normal lead acid battery for lighting consists from a trough, two plates of pure lead, a polypropylene fabric bag and diluted sulfuric acid. For a deep-cycle battery one lead-plate is replaced by a pasted electrode which can be fabricate with reasonable efforts, but it is not worth it just use more of the simple ones. The containment can be PP and not even thick as it has not to resist a 50kmh crash and a simple lid suffices as there is no danger of spillage. Weight is not important and space is plenty. Lead is cheap. Be generous.
A high electrolyte to lead ratio, temperature control and sophisticated charge-discharge control will make such a setup more durable then most what can be bought also the single cell layout allows for optimisations not possible with 6V or 12V blocks.
One will not find this on the market ever for two reasons: Selling something what runs forever is a bad idea. Workforce for maintenance is to expensive in the most interesting markets for renewable energy.
Now somebody put an controller together from Arduino or Pi, I believe all routines are already open source and a universal graphical interface too......
Here the direct link to the detailed table of contents.
I remembered that I have seen old battery assemblies which were used in industry for a long time up into the 1970's at least which were very simple and most buildt before WWII or shortly after. Wooden troughs mostly and they looked not expensive at all but nevertheless they must have worked nicely for a very long time, not 10 or 15 years and not 2000 cycles but as many as needed and that was more.
It is the maintenance trap. And the automobile. Electricity generation and storage is a high maintenance task, it is just outsourced to the supplier. Now coming to the consumer it is expected to be maintenance free and idiot proofed. At a competitive price. This is a bit to much demanded. Lead batteries were very common for farms and special kinds for the purpose were buildt and they were different from car-batteries. With due maintenance there was no restriction on lifetime, 25 years or more were normal. And they were cheap compared to what is sold now.
If one is willing to do the maintenance oneself or to hire somebody to do it, it is not complicated, anybody with a very basic technical understanding can be trained to do it in no time, and unskilled cheap labor is plenty in SA, then battery power for a fraction of the costs seems well possible.
A normal lead acid battery for lighting consists from a trough, two plates of pure lead, a polypropylene fabric bag and diluted sulfuric acid. For a deep-cycle battery one lead-plate is replaced by a pasted electrode which can be fabricate with reasonable efforts, but it is not worth it just use more of the simple ones. The containment can be PP and not even thick as it has not to resist a 50kmh crash and a simple lid suffices as there is no danger of spillage. Weight is not important and space is plenty. Lead is cheap. Be generous.
A high electrolyte to lead ratio, temperature control and sophisticated charge-discharge control will make such a setup more durable then most what can be bought also the single cell layout allows for optimisations not possible with 6V or 12V blocks.
One will not find this on the market ever for two reasons: Selling something what runs forever is a bad idea. Workforce for maintenance is to expensive in the most interesting markets for renewable energy.
Now somebody put an controller together from Arduino or Pi, I believe all routines are already open source and a universal graphical interface too......