Nickel Iron batteries tested.

[Brian McGowan]

It's been a while since I checked in and I got an email telling me so. I thought I'd relate my latest experience with my new Nickel Iron batteries.
We recently experienced a substantial ice storm which caused me to lose power for almost 3 days. During that period I managed to keep my house in heat and light using my Nickel Iron batteries and inverter charged by my solar panels. I could have used more sun but I managed to survive until the grid came back. The entire neighborhood was full of generators except my house. I didn't burn a drop of fuel to generate electricity. Based on my previous experience I don't think I could have done the same with FLA batteries.
Brian

[Rob Beckers]

Brian, welcome back! :)
Interesting you should mention NiFe batteries. There are too many (conflicting) stories floating around the Internet, and I spent some time yesterday trying to sort through. You probably know a guy named Bill Blake that over the last few years has been on a crusade (http://forum.solar-electric.com/showthread.php?16120-Compare-Nickel-Iron-Edison-Batteries-and-Chinese-Ni-Fe-Cells) to crucify the current version of the NiFe batteries that are all made in China.

I find NiFe batteries very interesting, as they hold the promise of nearly infinite life (just change out the electrolyte) even when abused through 100% discharges. At least, that worked for the original Edison cells. I would be interested to hear your take on all this.

-RoB-

[Brian McGowan]

Rob,
I finally decided someone had to try them out and I am very good at really putting things to the test. There was a guy who commented on another blog I am on when I mentioned that I was going to get them. That might be him. After reading some of his comments on other places I decided he had nothing but a beef he couldn’t really back up. He has not tried them and has no personal experience with them. I never heard from him again after that.
I decided to give them a try because of the way I was going through FLA batteries. I came to the conclusion that FLAs are just far too fragile to handle what mother nature dishes out. I needed a storage system that did not fail if you charged them too hard or discharged them too hard or they got to hot or cold or ran the voltage too high or low.
I purchased a 500Ah pack which I can safely discharge to 80% so I have 400Ah of available storage. With FLAs I would only have had at best 250Ah of usable storage if I went to 50% and you know that will kill them fast. The other problem I was having was I couldn’t discharge the FLAs enough to absorb all I could make in a day so my charge controller was constantly choking my panels down to protect the batteries. That is wasted energy.
In order to “initialize” for lack of a better term, the batteries the seller said I should charge them to 17 volts and discharge them to 12.2 volts 3 or 4 times. I haven’t been able to do that because they arrived in the late fall when the sun was down behind the trees in the woods behind my house. The worst time of the year for me. But the sun is rising in the sky and I am now getting them the charge they need.

I don’t know how this is going to work out but at this early stage I think they are doing OK so far. I would be interested in any info or comments.
I will keep you posted.
Brian

[Rob Beckers]

Amen to the fragility of lead-acid batteries. As you probably noticed I've been having my personal struggles with that lately...

If you could post back there once in a while to let us know how the batteries are holding up that would be much appreciated.

-RoB-

[Brian McGowan]

It has been a while since I have been here so I haven't been following along. I think I passed by a mention of a battery dilemma but I can't seem to find it. If you could post some links to those discussions I would be very happy to read about it.

[Andy Rhody]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nickel_iron_battery

[Rob Beckers]

Brian, here is one such link (http://forum.solar-electric.com/showthread.php?16120-Compare-Nickel-Iron-Edison-Batteries-and-Chinese-Ni-Fe-Cells). The same person has been posting at various forums though. I'm not sure if this stems from actual experience, or he has some other iron in this fire.

Andy, the Wikipedia entry is what got me really interested in NiFe batteries. They look like the ideal battery: Can't kill them, not even with repeated 100% discharge. Immune to overcharging. Extremely long life. The only downside mentioned is that they have a fairly high self-discharge rate, but that is generally not a big deal in off-grid situations where batteries get cycled to some extend just about every day.

The "Internal Combusion" book that I read and reviewed a little while (http://www.greenpowertalk.org/showthread.php?t=8454) ago also talks at length about NiFe batteries. This is the original "Edison" battery, that was used by Edison and Henry Ford to provide power to electrical cars at the turn of the 20th century. At that time it was a real toss-up which one of the two would win the race: The electrical car or the gasoline (internal combustion) car. Another interesting one is that Edison's factory, which produced NiFe batteries into the 1970's, was bought by another (lead-acid) battery manufacturer, Exite. It looks like Exite's only purpose was to get rid of the competition, as they closed down the factory after the take-over.

-RoB-

[Brian McGowan]

Rob,

I was more interested in reading about the difficulties you were having with FLA batteries. That is the links I was interested in.

I will check out that guy's posts although it doesn't matter now. I have the batteries and I am going to put them to the test.

I can tell you it's 26 degrees in the garage where the batteries are living and it doesn't seem to matter to them. They are just standing out there in the cold working just fine. I know for a fact that even at higher temps than that the FLAs were severely hampered.

Today's harvest was 3.3kWh. Are you interested in seeing a picture of them? How would I post it or should I just email it to you?

Brian

[Brian McGowan]

I regularly report to the person who sold me the batteries. Tonight I sent him this update.

I decided to try an experiment. I have this little 400W MPPT grid tied inverter kind of like one of those Enphase things but packaged for indoor use. I bought it for use as a dump load thinking it would put out 400W all the time but the wattage it puts out is dependent on the voltage and I never get close to it's 24 volt by using 12V batteries so I never get full output.


Anyway, I decided to run it for 24 hours non stop and see what my system and the new batteries would do with it. Here are the results.

I harvested 240Ah at 3.7kWh during that 24 hour period.

The grid tied inverter put 2.91kWh onto the grid.

I used .335kWh for my AV control system. This replaces the .455kWh/day that the grid power supply for this system would use.

I used .198kWh for my lawn light, porch light and flag spot system at night,

This totals 3.443kWh.

I also charged the wireless touch panel for the AV control system and 3 cell phones directly from the batteries. I can't quantify this amount.

Minimum voltage only got down to 12.9V during this period.

The batteries are helping me to actually store and use the power I can harvest. I look forward to being able to replace grid power with stored solar power by using it to run the fridge, clothes washer, computer room and dishwasher at night and recharging the batteries during the day once I am out of the tree shadows.

I would not have been able to store that much with the FLAs I was using and they would not have put up with being used that way. I tried that last summer. That would have been about a 50% discharge and you know how FLAs don't like that very much.

[Brian McGowan]

Just thought I'd tell you about my weekend exploits.

It has not been totally sunny and today it was actually overcast all day.

Over the last 72 hours I have:
Harvested 8.9kWh
Dumped 6.76kWh onto the grid
Used 1kWh for the AV control system
Used .594kWh for landscape lighting
Did 2 loads of wash
Ran the dishwasher
Made 3 cups of coffee
Ran the refrigerator for several hours.
Charged all my cellphones and the touchpanel for the AV control system


Current battery voltage is 12.5V and I am still putting power out to the grid. Granted there was power in the batteries when I started.

I am attempting to get the voltage down to 12.2 volts and in the morning I will turn off the inverter because it's supposed to be a very sunny day and I want the batteries to get charged to 17 volts again so I can complete another discharge/charge cycle and also be ready for the blasted snow on Tuesday.

I was very happy with the way the battery handled running the dishwasher. The FLAs never did that well. I actually had the dishwasher and the clothes washer running at the same time. The inverter was drawing 80 amps but the panels were supplying at least half of that most of the time.

I have already had my first 4.5kWh day for the year and am hoping for a 5kWh day tomorrow if it's as sunny as they are forecasting it will be.

[Bryan Couch]

Brian, just wondering about your system...

What are you using... panels, inverter etc?
Who's batteries are you using?
What do you run off your batteries, the whole house, just select loads??

I'm pretty new so I don't really know what questions to ask just wondering about the rest of the system and how you use it I guess.

For anyone...
What are the drawbacks to these batteries? I understand electrolyte needs to be changed every 5 years or so but you either change the batteries with FLA or the electrolyte with these. Either way its a job that needs to be done and the electrolyte must be a lot cheaper than a new set of batteries and less waste is a good thing! The conditions of use seem a lot less finicky with these, ease of use is a good thing! Money wise the additional cost of these batteries vs FLA would be easily made up and then some over the NiFe life, money in my pocket is a good thing!

I must be missing something... I'm sure I am, because I can't see why anyone would use anything else in a RE system.

Ready to learn... :)
Bryan

[Bryan Couch]

The battery problems Rob was sorting out are in this one I believe... http://www.greenpowertalk.org/showthread.php?t=19149

[Brian McGowan]

I have 1.05kW in panels, Outback FM80 charge controller, 500Ah in batteries which came from Iron Edison, a 2.5/5kW PSW inverter, 800/1.5kW MSW inverter, 400W grid tied inverter. I charge all my batteries for tools, phones and AV touchpanel, run my AV control system and landscape lights all straight from the battery among other things depending on the season.
I have an AC cable from the PSW inverter in the garage to a pair of quad outlet boxes at either end of the basement so I can use that power in the house whenever possible. I run extension cords to various places around the house and have relay boxes that pass inverter power when that is on and grid power when it isn't. to whatever I have attached to them.
The batteries are an experiment like everything else I do because someone had to grab the bull by the horns and give them a try and shake out the rumors and realities. The original Edison cell was produced in the USA until the early 70's when I believe Exide bought it up and ceased production because that's how you kill your competition. The original cell could be disassembled to be refurbished which the Chinese versions cannot. Many consider this to be too much of a disadvantage but what choice is there since the original is not longer in production? They also have more internal leakage than other battery technologies but considering how much more forgiving they seem to be the slightly higher leakage is easily tolerable. Another reason I decided to try them was trying to protect the FLAs was forcing the charge controller to choke the panels down so as not to overcharge them. That meant that I wasn't absorbing all the power my panels could generate.
So there's a brief synopsis of my system.

[Bill Blake]

Brian I don't remember ever talking with you but would enjoy a Link to it.

It's been 42 years since I owned Nickel Iron Batteries and would love them again
if they ever come back with the 'Edison Submarine Type Nickel Iron Batteries'.

https://www.google.com/#q='Edison+Submarine+Type+Nickel+Iron+Batteries'

A little of what I come up with is from current users and all 4 NiFe Sales outfits
in the USA. Most of it comes from Changhong Batteries in China who actually makes
your NiFe Cells for Decades now. Or from Edison Books and All of the
Edison Battery Patents. Even the Russian NiFe Battery Builders occasionally.

You see 'Changhong and The Electric Indian' :bigsmile:

is a multi-billion dollar Company
that can afford to tell you straight - IF a person wants to face up to it.

They recently re-wrote their User Manuals and are revealing more than ever

IF you can believe the guys making millions of NiFe Cells without the myths and tales.

OR

Type 'Nickel Iron Life Cycle Chart'

Or 'Nickel Iron Battery by Bill Blake' into any known search engine.

Good Luck.

http://www.changhongbatteries.com/Nickel-lron(Ni-Fe)_c13_m2.2.1.html

http://www.changhongbatteries.com/Pocket_type_Ni-Fe_rechargeable_battery_pm52_m1.6_g41.html

http://www.changhongbatteries.com/Ni-Fe_battery_for_storage_p146_m2.2.6.html


Bill Blake



Rob,
I finally decided someone had to try them out and I am very good at really putting things to the test. There was a guy who commented on another blog I am on when I mentioned that I was going to get them. That might be him. After reading some of his comments on other places I decided he had nothing but a beef he couldn’t really back up. He has not tried them and has no personal experience with them. I never heard from him again after that.
I decided to give them a try because of the way I was going through FLA batteries. I came to the conclusion that FLAs are just far too fragile to handle what mother nature dishes out. I needed a storage system that did not fail if you charged them too hard or discharged them too hard or they got to hot or cold or ran the voltage too high or low.
I purchased a 500Ah pack which I can safely discharge to 80% so I have 400Ah of available storage. With FLAs I would only have had at best 250Ah of usable storage if I went to 50% and you know that will kill them fast. The other problem I was having was I couldn’t discharge the FLAs enough to absorb all I could make in a day so my charge controller was constantly choking my panels down to protect the batteries. That is wasted energy.
In order to “initialize” for lack of a better term, the batteries the seller said I should charge them to 17 volts and discharge them to 12.2 volts 3 or 4 times. I haven’t been able to do that because they arrived in the late fall when the sun was down behind the trees in the woods behind my house. The worst time of the year for me. But the sun is rising in the sky and I am now getting them the charge they need.

I don’t know how this is going to work out but at this early stage I think they are doing OK so far. I would be interested in any info or comments.
I will keep you posted.
Brian

[Brian McGowan]

Bill,
If you are only going to consider the original Edison type batteries then you are probably going to be waiting a very long time. I don't see Exide bringing back a technology that would compete so strongly with their current product line which is so profitable when they can just keep it on the shelf and out of the market place.
This leaves only the Chinese type of battery. While maybe not as good as the original, it is still the only option thanks to Exide. Someone has to try it so since I have the technical knowledge to put them to the test and understand the results and I was sick of the FLAs just not cutting it in the renewable world I chose to be the test subject.

To date I can only say I am pleased with their performance so far. I have seen them do things that the FLAs I have owned in the past would not be able to do at all much less survive doing for long if they could. They live in the garage where it is basically the same temperature as the outside. They kept me in heat and light during the 58 hour grid failure after the big ice storm. They seem completely immune to cold. I haven't had them through a summer yet so I can't speak to how they will do when hot but we are about to find out. I have been putting them to the test in other ways also and seen them outperform the FLAs I have had in the past when trying to use them for the same tasks.
As for longevity, there is only one way to find the answer to that and I am working on it which is more than I can say for anyone that doesn't have a set of these batteries.
I would like to know what kind of battery bank you are using and how you are making out with that.
Brian

[Bill Blake]

Things change.

American Manufacturing Companies are getting back into The Nickel Iron Story
as we speak.

https://www.google.com/#q=Encell+Technology+Nickel+Iron+Batteries+and+the +new+Flow-Rite+NiFe+Watering+System

You are not quite as alone as you may think.

Changhong Batteries - The undisputed builders of your Nickel Iron Cells -

has many thousands of NiFe customers stretching back Decades

covering every Continent on earth.

A multi-billion dollar outfit with a research department that goes into the
Doctorate Levels. They have been nice enough to speak with old Bill
among many others like your salesman Brandon.

My time is a little tight for a few days so let's give anyone that hasn't had
a chance to download some of 'the heavy MB' from the
Changhong Batteries Links that I posted.

Far from having an axe to grind for those people I just hope they can get it right.
Nickel Iron is one of the longest, most twisted stories in Alternate Energy history.
That's why some people prefer to take it a chunk at a time.

The Bill Blake Story can wait until after we Looks at the

'Changhong and The Electric Indian' Story.

Brian, Google will be watching you now. It used to take days for them to key in
on new Nickel Iron conversations. Now it's hours.


Bill Blake


Bill,
If you are only going to consider the original Edison type batteries then you are probably going to be waiting a very long time. I don't see Exide bringing back a technology that would compete so strongly with their current product line which is so profitable when they can just keep it on the shelf and out of the market place.
This leaves only the Chinese type of battery. While maybe not as good as the original, it is still the only option thanks to Exide. Someone has to try it so since I have the technical knowledge to put them to the test and understand the results and I was sick of the FLAs just not cutting it in the renewable world I chose to be the test subject.

To date I can only say I am pleased with their performance so far. I have seen them do things that the FLAs I have owned in the past would not be able to do at all much less survive doing for long if they could. They live in the garage where it is basically the same temperature as the outside. They kept me in heat and light during the 58 hour grid failure after the big ice storm. They seem completely immune to cold. I haven't had them through a summer yet so I can't speak to how they will do when hot but we are about to find out. I have been putting them to the test in other ways also and seen them outperform the FLAs I have had in the past when trying to use them for the same tasks.
As for longevity, there is only one way to find the answer to that and I am working on it which is more than I can say for anyone that doesn't have a set of these batteries.
I would like to know what kind of battery bank you are using and how you are making out with that.
Brian

[Brian McGowan]

So from what you say, I have obtained batteries made by what is currently the best company on the planet to get them from. That is at least somewhat comforting. I did a lot of research including reading many of your posts to arrive at the decision to get these.
Encell's battery offering is only a 160Ah and it looks like they are very new at this. I needed to get a 500Ah pack to make a comparison to the FLAs I had used before and to make the best use of the rest of my system. I noticed that their webpage is copyrighted 2013 however I did see news articles for their battery management systems, which seems to be the main thrust of their business.
As for the Changhong story, it hardly matters to me now as I am committed and have my batteries. I have been all over their website also.
I am, however still very interested in your story. What are you doing and what kind of system are you running and what kind of battery storage are you using?

[Bill Blake]

Changhong Batteries didn't Lie to you - your salesman did.

If you studied then you know that running your NiFe Cells 80% DOD
will wear them out in a few years.

Even with Electrolyte Changes.

Changhong spells it out CLEARLY in their 2008 User Manual, the user manual
before that and in their current

'Nickel Iron Battery Life Cycle Chart' as well.

https://www.google.com/#q=Changhong+Nickel+Battery+Life+Cycle+Chart

Why risk costing people their hard earned money?
The batteries hold up very good if you treat them like they were Lead Acid and
get real.

The 85% Dead sales pitch is even more Ludicrous than the 80%.

As far as Encell Technology goes the Atlas 160 Ah NiFe Battery was sales pitch.

They were NOT able to come up with an opening model even that Large.

Remember that in Nickel Iron Story Land
it's awful easy to fall victim
to that 'veneer of knowledge' syndrome
that was previously discussed.

Where was it that you say we talked before this Forum ???

I have to know before offering you any of my personal business.


Bill Blake




So from what you say, I have obtained batteries made by what is currently the best company on the planet to get them from. That is at least somewhat comforting. I did a lot of research including reading many of your posts to arrive at the decision to get these.
Encell's battery offering is only a 160Ah and it looks like they are very new at this. I needed to get a 500Ah pack to make a comparison to the FLAs I had used before and to make the best use of the rest of my system. I noticed that their webpage is copyrighted 2013 however I did see news articles for their battery management systems, which seems to be the main thrust of their business.
As for the Changhong story, it hardly matters to me now as I am committed and have my batteries. I have been all over their website also.
I am, however still very interested in your story. What are you doing and what kind of system are you running and what kind of battery storage are you using?

[Brian McGowan]

So I see you found me at 2greenenergy.com also. As I said, I have watched you at many places. You seem to pop up every 6 months or so. Still no information about what you do or what kinds of systems you are running or what kinds of contributions you are making to the art of renewable energy besides speaking out about these batteries. Maybe these batteries are good or maybe they are bad. I have the technical ability and knowledge to determine how they perform in real world conditions and decided I should find out and divulge this information to the public so everyone will be better informed. The manufacturer claims what they claim and you claim what you claim. My guess is the actual truth lies somewhere in the middle as with all things. I am willing to actually find out and report back for the good of the community at large as many of the people at this and other sites are also doing about their experiences and you don't seem to be doing that.

As for DOD and cycle life, no matter how you look at it these batteries are advertised by the manufacturer as being able to provide more cycles at any DOD than a Rolls 4000 series according to the Rolls website. I actually have spreadsheets somewhere comparing different brands and types of batteries under various conditions. Some of the information came from links you provided at various forums and some from my own research.

Still I don't plan to discharge them to 85% even occasionally. The biggest problems I had with FLAs was that the sun wasn't out long enough to get a proper absorb and float charge meaning sulfation will occur at some point and it always did. A problem NiFe batteries don't have due to the way they operate. No matter how you cut it, the fact that sulfur precipitates out of the electrolyte and bonds with the lead plates means there will always be places on those plates that have more resistance than other places on those plates meaning that there will always be places that don't get "cleansed" of sulfur. The sulfur provides insulation between the plates and the electrolyte and limits the current the battery can draw. As the sulfur fails to get driven off the plates and back into solution it becomes more permanently bonded with the lead plate and this will always eventually kill FLAs. Of course battery manufacturers love this feature. I have tried several circuits and purchased available desulfators to try to reduce this problem but none have made any noticeable difference.
Also temperature is a problem with FLAs and not near as much of a problem with the NiFe. My batteries live in the garage which is about the same temperature as outdoors. I was coming up with all kinds of arrangements to heat and cool the FLAs which consumed energy. I am not doing that with the NiFe.
These are just some of the differences that made me want to try these out.

I am not costing people their hard earned money. I have not advocated for anyone other than me to get these although I would welcome someone else actually pressing some of these into service for a second point of view for comparison. I am attempting to save other people money buy actually trying them myself and reporting the results. I do this with all the products and ideas I implement. I document them, albeit slowly, on my website which I am happy for anyone to look at and comment on or discuss.

Google can watch if it wants. It will probably learn a thing or two.

[Bill Blake]

You need to get it right.
Old Bill retired over 7 years ago.
My days of Living off-grid are behind me.

The days of pulling into remote area's - or not so remote areas without electric
to conduct off-grid business operations
like we were air-conditioned gypsies -
are behind me.

My days of giving the Internet free survival inventions are behind me.
I do what I do and say what I say as a hobby to take my mind off what I
should be doing for my Son's business interests -
sometimes - when I feels Like it.

Nobody pays me.
You don't have to read any of it.
I already have a few fans.

Now let's get real here again. Your talking big money. Forget Rolls 4000.
Let's talk Rolls 5000 which happen to stomp your NiFe Cells pretty bad
from 50% DOD to 100% DOD.

If your a Mighty Joe old Bill disciple :-) you should know that by now :-)

Do right and we can talk about

'The NiFe Theory of Battery-tivity'

sometime.

I believe it may be what you have been Looking for.
No charge of coarse. :-)
Just a little fun.

P.S. I don't Look for Posts and what have you. The machines do it
and report for free. I notice that the Top Title Subject Line here is going
un-monitored for some reason. Like:

'Encell Technology Nickel Iron Batteries and the new Flow-Rite NiFe Watering System'

Kills the deal for the machines :-)
They don't likes it so I'll remember that from now on.
You have to treat them like a good dog.

Bill Blake

[Brian McGowan]

So you claim you are retired and no longer have anything to do with living off grid or being involved in any kind of idea or knowledge sharing except that you have an active constant search set up to notify you of any mention of NiFe batteries so you can comment on it. So interested in this are you that you actually commented on a post I made on 2greenenergy.com which you also commented on a year ago exactly to the day without realizing that the only person that will see this is me because it is so far buried down the list a year later. I am actually surprised I got notified about it. In spite of the fact that you claim to be retired from all of renewable energy and with all the fraud that is going on in the renewable energy world you seize on this and this only with a vengeance. What is your game? Why your obsession with this? What happened to you that made you so obsessed with this single aspect of renewable energy and this one product in particular? It is extremely peculiar.

But back to the battery discussion.

Yes it seems if you do what every battery manufacturer says not to do the Rolls 5000 series would do better than the NiFe type in very deep discharge. Of course, you would not be able to recover them from such a discharge unless you ran a generator or grid powered charger without violating the max charging current thus shortening the battery life even further. There simply are not enough sun hours in the day to pull it off without violating the manufacturer’s max recommended charge current or time to return to full charge.

However, DOD is only one aspect of the suitability of a particular storage system.
You totally neglected to address the sulfation issue I mentioned. This was one of the biggest drivers for me to try this battery. By math and physics no FLA should be able to survive being in a totally solar powered system. There just isn’t enough sun time in the day to get them properly charged unless you never used them. Sulfation would inevitably occur and that would shorten the battery’s life. Sulfation is what kills batteries faster than anything else.

You also neglected to address the temperature issue. Another factor that decreases the capacity and life of FLA batteries.

There is much more to my interest in these batteries than just DOD. These other two factors were more prominent in my decision.

And once again, it could turn out that these batteries are not as good as FLAs but at least I am willing to find out.

[Bill Blake]

Let me tell you where many Thousands will view what you say.
You can also see what guys like Mike, an Electrical Engineer who bought about
$30,000.00 worth of Changhong Nickel Iron Batteries going on 3 years ago
has to say.

Mike is a Moderator called
Mike90250 at the

Solarpaneltalk Forum

and a regular called
Mike95490 at the

Wind-Sun Forum.

He has 12,504 Posts at the 2 of them as of tonight.

I'm well under 300 in ALL Groups.

Old Bill is in Mike's Groups as well as the

Fieldlines Forum

with thousands of total views

if people wish to picks at anything

which THEY WILL if you can't back your Lips up.

I would like to see what you got at any of the big 3 :-)

I also made a brief appearance at

The Survival Monkey Forum

where I had a little fun with your man Brandon Williams

and The Legendary 'Diamond' John Mario D'Angelo,

The Father of Chinese Nickel Iron Batteries in America.

John has sent me well over a hundred emails, over time, since he seems
to Likes my style.


https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=john+d'angelo+and+brandon+williams


I've taught your main man Brandon a good bit over the years
however I think he quickly
grew to fear hanging around in a Forum very Long
after old Bill rides in :nuts:

Basically you now have BBB and ABB in the NiFe World.

Brandon sneaks a shot in once in a while and then takes off not answering
any of da boys questions. They all notice.

Perhaps you can move up to the Big Leagues and be his proxy now.

See you in any of the 3 big, best known Forums.


Bill Blake



So you claim you are retired and no longer have anything to do with living off grid or being involved in any kind of idea or knowledge sharing except that you have an active constant search set up to notify you of any mention of NiFe batteries so you can comment on it. So interested in this are you that you actually commented on a post I made on 2greenenergy.com which you also commented on a year ago exactly to the day without realizing that the only person that will see this is me because it is so far buried down the list a year later. I am actually surprised I got notified about it. In spite of the fact that you claim to be retired from all of renewable energy and with all the fraud that is going on in the renewable energy world you seize on this and this only with a vengeance. What is your game? Why your obsession with this? What happened to you that made you so obsessed with this single aspect of renewable energy and this one product in particular? It is extremely peculiar.

But back to the battery discussion.

Yes it seems if you do what every battery manufacturer says not to do the Rolls 5000 series would do better than the NiFe type in very deep discharge. Of course, you would not be able to recover them from such a discharge unless you ran a generator or grid powered charger without violating the max charging current thus shortening the battery life even further. There simply are not enough sun hours in the day to pull it off without violating the manufacturer’s max recommended charge current or time to return to full charge.

However, DOD is only one aspect of the suitability of a particular storage system.
You totally neglected to address the sulfation issue I mentioned. This was one of the biggest drivers for me to try this battery. By math and physics no FLA should be able to survive being in a totally solar powered system. There just isn’t enough sun time in the day to get them properly charged unless you never used them. Sulfation would inevitably occur and that would shorten the battery’s life. Sulfation is what kills batteries faster than anything else.

You also neglected to address the temperature issue. Another factor that decreases the capacity and life of FLA batteries.

There is much more to my interest in these batteries than just DOD. These other two factors were more prominent in my decision.

And once again, it could turn out that these batteries are not as good as FLAs but at least I am willing to find out.

[Rob Beckers]

Bill, Brian has a valid point: Where does your extreme interest in NiFe batteries come from? It is hard to properly evaluate your words without knowing about motivation and context. I too noticed your posts on many of the other forums the moment anyone mentions NiFe. This is not about Brian, and requesting number of posts or other credentials is not what is pertinent; Brian has stated he is not flogging NiFe, nor has he published any outlandish claims (to the best of my knowledge). As he says, he's simply putting his money where his mouth is and testing these batteries in the real world, at his own expense. I believe he is speaking the truth, without hidden agendas.

I have read your posts, and looked at the Changhong docs regarding DOD, cycles etc., and I do appreciate you pointing out that some have been making unrealistic claims that are not supported by the manufacturer. That does not warrant the response anyone gets when they ask about your motivation. Why not fill us in? Your agenda is, unfortunately, as clear as mud at this point...

For me, I am interested in NiFe as a possible alternative for lead-acid. I am very familiar with the shortcomings of lead-acid, and how brief they tend to last for the average end-user that is not interested in babysitting his batteries. If NiFe can provide a solution that works better, in particular for this group of non-technical users, I am interested.

At this point my concerns, and what I would like to know more about, is how long they actually last (with normal use), how often the electrolyte needs to be exchanged (and what to do with it), and how one would size a system with NiFe (my understanding is that a smaller battery capacity will do the job of a larger lead-acid bank, though I don't know what the magic ratio is).

As a distributor for many RE products and brands I am also interested in possibly carrying battery technologies other than lead-acid for my customers. But I need to know what I'm getting into first; I will not sell junk (knowingly).

-RoB-

[Bill Blake]

Rob,

My Posts to date already laid out the story of how and why myself and a couple of
fellows that i know started looking into Nickel Iron Batteries and the
Century of misinformation, myths, Lies and stories that went with them.
It's a Long and bizarre Story filled with selfishness.

How many sets of Chinese NiFe batteries are out there in America and Canada
just since 1995 ??

Other than, There Coming, their coming or China has delays or
(Mike. the engineer's man)

John D'Angelo did them wrong
or whatever.

How many detailed accounts were ever offered?
A number of them have identified themselves in Groups.
Yes we track every known one - automatically.
Why? Because I Likes it.

During Edison's time. How many first hand accounts?

How many people are experts on the Edison NiFe Patents in these Forums
besides old Bill? That was due to greed and commerce or Edison would have
told you zilch.

How many people are experts on all the Changhong Literature ever released.
Together it all forms a Tapestry of information that I call
'nickel iron context thinking'.

It was a giant riddle that had never been solved.
Some people like puzzles, board games, dope, booze, gambling, video games,
reading, etc.
Old Bill decides what hobbies he Likes or don't Like- no one else.

I have family and friends that want batteries so I stay up on ALL battery technology
that I know of. I happen to use Lead acid batteries for 2 outbuildings with no power.
Who's business is that?

Google and the rest of them follow old Bill around the Internet
like a real good puppy dog IF you have enough views to the thread.

The machines take constant measurements.

To rewrite everything is not going to happen.

If you want to ask questions about established threads where there
are perhaps centuries of combined wisdom and up to millions in
off-grid equipment involved.
I'll be happy to answer.

Some people needed to be straightened out and they were.
IF they got hurt it was only because they were Lying to squeeze bucks out
of uneducated people via their own Lips or using Shill, proxy names
or people.

There is Plenty of potential in NiFe if done properly like Edison and his gang
already did for the US Navy shortly before World War I.
Fieldlines has it.

In Todays dollars just that Leg of the research into advanced NiFe is said to
have been around $200,000,000.00.

ALL my info comes from the highest of sources every-time.

About ME is just waging the dog. People can see that.

People need to confront the experts and the historical records being cited
IF they have a problem with reality. Or they can dream dreams -
Long as they don't try to rob people.


https://www.google.com/#q=nickel+iron+batteries+the+strengths


Best of Luck,


Bill Blake

[Brian McGowan]

Well I went over and read a little bit. I may sign up and make a post so I can see pictures and read a little here and there but I don't have time for yet another site. Unfortunately I am not retired and have to work for a living and have other projects for both home and alternate energy that I need to get moving on.

[Bill Blake]

Brian, There doesn't seem to be a whole lot of interest in NiFe lately or
perhaps I'm missing it.
It just seems like the guys that do have the Nickel Iron batteries really don't
care to discuss them or the Electrolyte much.

If you see something that you really like make a copy of the Post.
You never know when a Post or even an entire Thread can be erased
like it never happened in some forums.
Even days or weeks after it or they were written.
One of the best guys to ever happen to NiFe happened to have been from Canada
and was kind of driven (aggravated) out of at least 2 Forums that I know about.
It's something else.

Are you BigVid ?

If so was it Brandon Williams that came up with the NiFe Cells
Lasting 50 years, etc. You just change the electrolyte every 25 years -
like they candy.
The devil :-)

http://2greenenergy.com/2013/05/25/from-guest-blogger-bigvid-nickel-iron-battery/?relatedposts_hit=1&relatedposts_origin=42841&relatedposts_position=1


Bill Blake





Well I went over and read a little bit. I may sign up and make a post so I can see pictures and read a little here and there but I don't have time for yet another site. Unfortunately I am not retired and have to work for a living and have other projects for both home and alternate energy that I need to get moving on.

[Brian McGowan]

Bill,

Yes I am bigvid. I was going by my own name but when Craig changed over to wordpress and I registered it somehow took part of my email address and turned it into my screen name. Not real happy about it but I haven't figured out how to change it yet. As I said, I have too much to do and that is not real high in the priority list.

I will be happy to talk about my experience whether good or bad anytime I have information to share. At about 8 months in service, I can only say the batteries are still working better than the FLAs I have had up to this point.

That's good advice to copy everything. I do that for the most part already. I keep word documents with copies of everything I find interesting or may want to repost. I even have a separate document for each of the forums I participate in so I can formulate a post and get the spelling and grammar as correct as possible and then copy and paste it online where needed. I had too many times where I typed out a response and the website dropped it and all that work was gone.

No Brandon never did make that claim. I probably transposed it from the original Edison material I was also reading at the time. There was a lot of information going through my head at that time.

As I mentioned in response to your comment on my post your information came too late for me to change my mind and I'm not sure I would have anyway. There was just nothing else better on the horizon. Even at that blog one of Craig's clients is in the process of developing zinc/air batteries about an hour and a half from me in NJ. As I usually do, I offered to put their technology to the test in a real life situation. I even offered that they could give me a prototype unit that wasn't pretty. I am capable of dealing with things that don't have covers and so forth. I told them I could come and get it, keep records and they are close enough to come see the setup once in a while if they wanted to do an inspection. They are just not ready to release anything yet.

I did investigate all kinds of possibilities before making this decision. This may not be great but it still added up to being better than anything else I could find.

[Bill Blake]

Your batteries will do Just Fine as long as you keep them watered,
treat them decently and
change the Electrolyte Religiously.

When I have time we can go over the NiFe Electrolyte Story a bit.
It takes research, expert opinion and a balanced view.

A sales hustler is not always the expert some people may think that he is -
I can assure you.

The chickens may come home to roost on that man fairly soon.

A friend of mine talked with your salesman fairly recently for over an hour.
I was there listening.
He politely tore the man 'a new one' - bigtime.
It was ridiculous.

Brandon doesn't use the electrolyte chemicals that come from China
with his own batteries he says because it looks impure to him compared to
the American stuff.
He admitted that after getting boxed into a corner.

(Like old Bill hasn't been preaching about the purity of those chemicals
for a Long time now.)

There were more damaging Lines from Brandon - just as harmful.
It's a sad joke.

I guess the prices are just too high to run the business fair and square.

Every 2 - 3 years is more like it for changing your electrolyte.

The carbonate test is actually a waste of your time.
World First information.

There are other problems that build up in the Lye Type go-go juice as well.

Mr. Edison talked about it and cry-ed about it at great length.

Even 'Changhong and The Electric Indian' is 'giving it up' a little now.

Some of the Edison old timers were changing the electrolyte every
8 months to a year.

Then you get into LiOH Levels.

Another Long story that just keeps going and going.

Luckily we have the BBB Story and ABB Interpretations now :-)

If the stuff doesn't get erased.


Bill Blake




Bill,

Yes I am bigvid. I was going by my own name but when Craig changed over to wordpress and I registered it somehow took part of my email address and turned it into my screen name. Not real happy about it but I haven't figured out how to change it yet. As I said, I have too much to do and that is not real high in the priority list.

I will be happy to talk about my experience whether good or bad anytime I have information to share. At about 8 months in service, I can only say the batteries are still working better than the FLAs I have had up to this point.

That's good advice to copy everything. I do that for the most part already. I keep word documents with copies of everything I find interesting or may want to repost. I even have a separate document for each of the forums I participate in so I can formulate a post and get the spelling and grammar as correct as possible and then copy and paste it online where needed. I had too many times where I typed out a response and the website dropped it and all that work was gone.

No Brandon never did make that claim. I probably transposed it from the original Edison material I was also reading at the time. There was a lot of information going through my head at that time.

As I mentioned in response to your comment on my post your information came too late for me to change my mind and I'm not sure I would have anyway. There was just nothing else better on the horizon. Even at that blog one of Craig's clients is in the process of developing zinc/air batteries about an hour and a half from me in NJ. As I usually do, I offered to put their technology to the test in a real life situation. I even offered that they could give me a prototype unit that wasn't pretty. I am capable of dealing with things that don't have covers and so forth. I told them I could come and get it, keep records and they are close enough to come see the setup once in a while if they wanted to do an inspection. They are just not ready to release anything yet.

I did investigate all kinds of possibilities before making this decision. This may not be great but it still added up to being better than anything else I could find.

[Bill Blake]

Though it may be hard to see I started out really Liking Nickel Iron Batteries
and I still see tremendous promise in them once a person gets down to the
rock solid truth - as clearly stated by the Old AND the New manufacturers.

It was enjoyable hearing the various Lines coming out of Brian's
Nickel Iron Battery salesman's Lips.

Like how Changhong Batteries (Brian's batteries)
just cut and pasted other peoples charts into
their Literature and never really spelled anything out.

"The chart is not even from them" he said.

Here's a Multi Billion Dollar Company built with great pride and Ph D's involved
at every step.

The Kings of what they do for well over 30 years and we are going
to be fool enough to think they know not what they publish -
all over the World?

I plan on getting to what may be some positive aspects of Chinese NiFe
that I don't believe have ever been covered in the History of the Internet
once we get some realistic baselines established.

To save a lot of time I'm going to re-publish a few old Posts from a long string
of posts that ran at the Fieldlines Forum.
If it's not acceptable please remove it.

You will notice that it ALL matches up with the latest Charts and The Story
from
Changhong Batteries that was released in 2014 (I believe in 2014).

The info is easily found on the Changhong Batteries website.

We also need to cover their new Operators Manuals one of these days.

People may wind up REALLY being able to get their 30 to 40 years out of
Chinese Nickel Iron Cells -

even before we go back to the marvelous
Edison Nickel Iron Submarine Boat Batteries from over 100 years ago someday.

HOWEVER, Just like they used to say: 'You don't get to grow old playing da fool'.

REALLY getting Long Life and decent Capacity out of your Nickel Iron Batteries

is never going to be cheap, quick or easy.
Only in dreams.

Even 'Changhong and The Electric Indian' is Learning as they go.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

BillBlake
Full Member

Posts: 111
Country: USA

Nickel Iron (Ni-Fe) Battery Life Cycle Chart .. from the Manufacturer

« on: May 23, 2012, 06:19:22 PM »


Changhong Batteries knows their Ni-Fe Batteries possess a few unique, overwhelming and towering strengths.
They also know that beating an investment to an early death from a lack of honest technical data is no good for them.
Much better to size the bank properly from the beginning based on the truth and full, accurate testing.

So over the years 'Changhong and The Electric Indian' (a fun name I call them once in a while) :-) has repeatedly released
data to help the North American people plan and size their Nickel Iron Battery Bank for the long haul - how China likes it.

This data has been systematically withheld from the American Public with a few isolated exceptions.
The Dealers have shown very little. Why be ashamed of the multi-billion dollar Changhong name?

A huge Corporation with huge amounts of sales on the line from Divisions and Product Lines in many Countries can have
a good attitude but it's not exactly like they have had Showrooms in every major City in America - so far.

These are the Ni-Fe Batteries sold by BeUtilityFree, Inc. and The Iron Edison Battery Co.,
going by the email they both sent to me.
20% Nickel Content.

The following <snips> (below the line) are copied and posted directly from official

Changhong Manuals with no editing and very brief notations.

I was surprised that the Rolls 5000 Series Batteries kicked the NEW Ni-Fe Batteries

butts, so badly, between 50% DOD and 100% DOD.

This was AFTER any Electrolyte Changes.

See the Rolls Life Cycle Chart and the Changhong Life Cycle Chart.

In a nice way may I suggest that people running around posting a new Ni-Fe Ad claiming that you should run your
Ni-Fe Cells Down to 85% DOD (Dead) every day of their Life - stop, Look and listen.
Why have broken hearted 'Brother and Sister Solar People' out a Lot of hard earned dough in a few years for no reason.

<Ad snip>

"Nickel Iron batteries handle a much larger depth of discharge, so you can use 85% of your battery’s capacity.

In about 7-10 years, instead of having to buying all new lead, you would just need to refresh the electrolyte and

your system will perform like new." <end of Ad snip>

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

'Changhong NF-S Series Nickel-Iron batteries

for solar PV application.'

From Oct. 2010


1.6.7 Cycling

The Changhong NF-S series NiFe

cell is adaptable to a wide range

of depth of discharge (DOD). The

number of cycles vary with DOD

required. The lower DOD is, the

more number of cycles are. The

number of cycles reach thousands

during shallow discharge, while it

can only reach hundreds of cycles

during deep discharge. The

following figure gives the effect of

DOD on the available cycle life.

----------------------------------------------------------------

(From: 'Solar Ni-Fe cell catalogue')

changhongbatteries (dotcom)

(See the chart at the bottom of the Roll's page to compare Battery DOD Life Cycles)

rollsbattery (dotcom) /content/specifications-renewable

-----------------------------------------------------------------

'Jan. 2008 Changhong NiFe Operators Manual'

1.4

Life time: The charge and discharge cycles should

be more than 750 times. During the life time, the

average discharge capacity should not be less

than nominal capacity. The minimum discharge

capacity should be more than 90% of the nominal

capacity.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

'Changhong Operators Manual'


(NOTE: Prior to Jan. 2008 above)


4.8 Lifetime

Life time: The number of full charge and full discharge cycles will

be about 1000 times depending on proper maintenance

including electrolyte replacement when needed.

Much longer lifespans can be expected if regular discharges are

less than 20%

where the number of charge / discharge cycles will be between

5000 to 8000 cycles.

The end of the lifespan is defined by operation at 70% capacity
or lower

after replacing the electrolyte.

In many applications the battery will still be very useful for
many years or decades beyond this. <snip>

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Bill Blake


P.S. They raised the Lithium Hydroxide (you mix) by 4 times as of the Jan. 2008 Operators Manual which changed
a lot of things.

We need to have some Ni-Fe Electrolyte Strategy and Ni-Fe Charging posts someday.
It's a new game now in several ways $$

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
XeonPony

Hero Member

Did you buy stock in the company or some thing? I'm sorry but this is all most seems like advertising to me not just this post but the 4 added up.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bruce S

Global Moderator
SuperHero Member

Xeonpony;
I asked him to post deeper information so we could have hard evidence , rather than just another round of stuff like the ones from last year :-) .
AND not just the stuff we've all heard before, but that stuff we hardly ever get to know about, like how many times the electrolyte needs to be changed.
I did explain that people here would take him to task if the stuff seemed off kilter and no links :-) .

Sorry should've put this notice up already, work keeps getting in the way ;-)

Thanks
Bruce S

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The reference to the "No Links"
was because at the time old Bill had not done his 50 Posts yet -
so no Links could be Posted.

Bill Blake

[Brian McGowan]

Sorry I have not been here for a while. My job is trying to kill me and life is busy. That’s why I was reluctant to join another forum. I did join Solar Panel talk but only got as far as a post saying I was there and later adding my website to my signature but not a post since then.

One thing to note up front, my batteries came already filled from the factory. Don’t know if that’s good or bad but that's the way they came.

So Bill, all that you say here is great. Fortunately advertising doesn’t work real well on me and once again, DOD was not the thing I was really looking for. It was not advertising that made me look into this but mention of this type of battery and a lot of research into the original Edison design and history. Along with this was research into other battery types and styles. Many people talked about using forklift batteries. I actually have access to forklift batteries. The Amish here seem to use them. There was a local guy selling 500Ah batteries which I went to look at. They had a footprint about 1 foot by 2.5 feet and were 2.5 feet tall and weighed about 500 lbs was very used and would still cost me $500.00. Very unstable footprint and if it ever fell over I would not be able to pick it back upright myself, meaning it would spill all of it’s acid all over my garage floor. Not really an option no matter how much I wanted it to be and it was still a FLA with all the flaws for this purpose that FLA’s possess which caused me to go looking for something else in the first place.

I considered, as I mentioned, Zinc/Air batteries and had extensive contact with the company developing them. They are just not ready to let one go yet but I am on their list and they understand that I can test them in a real world environment.

I considered old hybrid car batteries. They seemed not to be suitable either for a variety of reasons. This might change but for now this is still the case.

Also investigated NiMh and Nicad. Also not really suitable for a variety of reasons.

I considered generating hydrogen and actually mostly built a nice, inexpensive, expandable/scalable hydrogen generator. It is pretty simple and will work well if I ever get to the point where it is worth it to go this route. I also had access to a fuel cell from a construction company that had one from a hydrogen powered version of one of it’s road signs. Another way to use it would be just burning it in a lawn mower engine turning an alternator or permanent magnet generator. I already have a gas powered version of this to keep my batteries up when the grid goes down for long periods and I need power at night. Storage is the big issue here though. It just takes too much energy to store it.

I considered pumped storage and using a positive displacement pump in reverse to drive a geared up permanent magnet so there wouldn’t be as much loss as a turbine type driver.

I considered using heavy weights and block and tackle driving the permanent magnet generator. Too infrastructure required to support an amount of weight that would be useful.

I really looked at a lot of stuff and kept coming back to batteries and of them NiFe batteries due to the no sulfation issue which was my prime concern. With no American source of these batteries I was forced to turn to the Chinese versions. Maybe not as good as the Edison version but since these are no longer available, any comparison to them is irrelevant. You can’t get them so they don’t matter at all. There is no sense in even talking about them at all until Exide turns loose of the technology and someone starts making them again here in the US.

So I was down to 3 sources that I could find.

Zapp works which was refurbing old Edison cells which means the newest units would be at least 38 years old and most much older than that and the supply would be limited to what they could find.

So to acquire new units it was between BeUtilityFree and Iron Edison. I came to realize both of them were selling the same product made by the same company in China. After that it came down to cost. Only at this point did I finally contact either one of these two venders. Any advertising would be irrelevant since they were both selling the same thing.
So if Changhong was the only game in the world then Changhong it was going to be. Since, as Bill says, they are a 30 year old company with a huge investment and PHDs working for them and they are selling 10’s of thousands of these to the Chinese government and as Bill so eloquently stated in one of his threads, “they haven’t stood anyone up in front of a wall yet”, I figured it was the only option.

And now for some things that do require an actual technical response.

As I was researching the original Edison cells I read about the electrolyte becoming contaminated with Oxygen, I believe, which basically oxidized the KOH eventually rendering it useless. I read that the Edison cells had a layer of mineral oil floated on top to “seal” it from the outside air and stop the absorption of Oxygen although if you are electrolyzing water into Hydrogen and Oxygen and that Oxygen is bubbling through the water I can’t imagine how some of it doesn’t absorb into the electrolyte. I have wondered if flooding space at the top of the batteries with Argon would help prevent this in the same manner as the mineral oil would. I have also heard talk of carbon getting in there also but I don’t know how since there is no carbon in distilled water. What do you think of any of this?

As for watering batteries. I was thinking about attaching a tube system to the filling ports of the batteries to collect the Hydrogen and Oxygen and then passing that through a container of the platinum beads I was going to use to catalyze any oxygen that got into the Hydrogen from the Hydrogen generator I designed to insure my Hydrogen was pure to recombine the Hydrogen and Oxygen from the batteries back into pure water which I could then use to refill the batteries. I figured if it was recombined Hydrogen and Oxygen it would be at least as pure as distilled water. What do you think about that?

OK I was lucky to get this much time and now that time is done so I am posting this now and will write more later. There is still the whole sulfation issue to deal with and charging efficiency verses FLAs when you add in the power used for absorbing and equalizing.
Brian

[Bill Blake]

Brian, Whether shipped dry or wet there may be problems with your NiFe Electrolyte
that is built-in at the factory.

Cheap 'Lab Grade' Lithium Hydroxide and
not enough of it (grams per Liter)
for starters.

Your NiFe salesman Brandon says he won't use the Chinese LiOH in his own
Nickel Iron Batteries - but it's good enough for you.
The devil.

Changhong has various Ph D's including a Doctor of Battery Chemistry
who I spoke with twice at length. So what old Bill says is basically
just the answers to key questions from some of the Top Lips of
Changhong Batteries.

Nickel Iron Electrolyte Chemicals really needs to be a separate post or two
some time.
It's at the heart of the entire Long, drawn out Nickel Iron Story.

Test the pH of your Distilled Water and then we can have a reasonable discussion
about it - along with your Oxygen, Carbon, other
SELF GENERATED Pollutants, etc.

Based on recent private email I firmly believe the Father of Chinese NiFe in America
still likes to jump into the forums from time to time.

He seems to like using assumed names as in that wonderful round where he,
John D'Angelo of BeUtilityFree Batteries,
Brandon Williams of Iron Edison Batteries
and myself, Bill Blake
all got into it over at the Survival Monkey Forum.

Before that John used to use his own name a lot.

Anyway recently I believe John started 2 Threads in 2 different Forums
that went into a lot of what your talking about.

Even exclusive Patent information provided by John proving
old Bill's old claims about a lot of the carbon coming from the distilled water itself.
As in
'My old Fox guarding the Hen House Story'.
Zapp Works in Montana Liked that one.

This new information was offered by 'Diamond' John Mario D'Angelo
perhaps to help his NiFe Batteries customer
'Mike' the Engineer / Forum Moderator. Mike has hated his new job he kids about
as being a 'Nickel Iron Battery Water Boy' ever since he retired and spent the
big money on a large 48 Volt Chinese NiFe Bank that he got through John.

However there is another Moderator at that Forum who likes to exert his influence
who seems to have erased the entire thread.

Quite a number of players got involved in both threads.
In both cases the threads were completely wiped clean and it became more
'Lost Knowledge'. There has been more lost knowledge than most people realize.

I didn't realize just how bad it had become until recently which is why I suggested making copies if your really interested in something.

What about the 2014 Changhong Nickel Iron Battery Operators Manuals.
Are all interested parties up to speed with the Latest Changhong Gospel of NiFe?

It seems we had to bring the NiFe salesman up to speed on that front as well.
Properly covering Changhong Batteries is not realistic without having a good idea
of what the Builders themselves are talking about.
Unless someone is into some little 'following' here in America that doesn't want
people to be properly educated for their own reasons.

Over the years the Changhong Literature forms a nice little NiFe Mosaic
along with other source materials.

Until the next time,

Bill Blake

[Rob Beckers]

I have also heard talk of carbon getting in there also but I don’t know how since there is no carbon in distilled water.

If memory serves me this was mentioned as coming from the CO2 in the air, dissolving into the electrolyte (carbondioxide gets readily absorbed into water). It forms carbonate (CO3) compounds of potassium with KOH; potassium carbonate and bicarbonate.

In a larger context, I would trust the manufacturer (and not John, Brandon, nor Bill) regarding the electrolyte and maintenance (electrolyte changes). If they have been selling these batteries for a long time there must be a good understanding about what it takes to keep them healthy. It is in the manufacturers interest to keep their customers reasonably happy, which means that their cells have to last a reasonable length of time, so I don't see them providing bogus information regarding that.

-RoB-

[Bill Blake]

RoB, If your distilled water has NOT picked up any CO2 it will test around neutral
at around 7 pH.
Good Luck finding such water.
It's testing acidic for a reason.
Old Bill always has the facts first or he would have been attacked off of the Net
long, long ago. Instead quite frankly the 'resellers' ran.
A person better have done their homework on this subject.

Not every Changhong Batteries employee or author speaks perfect English
like their Doctor of Battery Chemistry does. Dealing with Changhong can take a
bit of 'context thinking' and interpretation as time goes by and the authors change.

With Solar getting big they had to develop the 'Blivet Charging' routine.

For instance in one Document they say to check the electrolyte for carbonates
at 150 cycles when they are being used as storage batteries.

In another Changhong Document they say to check the electrolyte every 3 years
when in the Float mode. However that can be taken out of context by people that
try to use the 'veneer of knowledge' routine IF day can sneak it in someplace :-)

Which is right? Which is wrong? Are they BOTH correct?

Changhong Documents have been withheld from the public for many years by the resellers as they are still withheld today.
The resellers make up their own Literature telling it "How they Likes it".

We have ISOUTAR from Canada to thank for the First 3 Gospels of Changhong
and pointing the way to the Forth Gospel of Changhong which was the
first one (that I know of) that was ever published on the Internet.

ISOUTAR said the 4th one came out around October, 2010
in a Forum that he got ran out of.
Yes, old Bill talked with da man on the phone when he was at his business in Canada.

If you read the Latest DocumentS from Sichuan Changhong Battery Co., Ltd.
it's clear that they have decided to reveal a bit more than they have in the past.
I'm confident some internal politics was probably involved.

Though they never say a word they do read some of the Forums here in the USA.
No doubt they get a little kick out of it occasionally.
I send them a few things every once in a while.


Bill Blake


If memory serves me this was mentioned as coming from the CO2 in the air, dissolving into the electrolyte (carbondioxide gets readily absorbed into water). It forms carbonate (CO3) compounds of potassium with KOH; potassium carbonate and bicarbonate.

In a larger context, I would trust the manufacturer (and not John, Brandon, nor Bill) regarding the electrolyte and maintenance (electrolyte changes). If they have been selling these batteries for a long time there must be a good understanding about what it takes to keep them healthy. It is in the manufacturers interest to keep their customers reasonably happy, which means that their cells have to last a reasonable length of time, so I don't see them providing bogus information regarding that.

-RoB-

[Brian McGowan]

OK so I will get a kit and check the PH of my distilled water just for amusement's sake. I am curious. I have also given thought to making a solar still. Always wanted to but never had a reason to. I could keep it purged with an inert gas to keep the CO2 out and make it nice and neutral. Although, with CO2 being only approximately 0.039% of the atmosphere I would imagine you would have to leave the lid off of a bottle of distilled water for a long time to make a difference, but I will find out. Of course I have also distilled water in other ways. I wonder how much CO2 that is in the water that is being distilled remains in the final product? I could find that out too pretty easily. If I have to use power to distill water I will have to see if it's any cleaner than what I buy. Distilled water is running around $0.78/gal.
I am sure I could wade my way through a translated document if I got my hands on it. I have done my share of technology transfers from companies I have worked for to or from oriental companies. I have seen my fair share of "Japlish" (sorry for the generic term but it was the best I could think of. I mean no disrespect.) even have had to read my own documentation translated into an oriental language and then retranslated back into English. I can assure you that is very interesting and eye opening but gives a clearer understanding of how the translation affects the reality and the thought process involved.
As for checking frequency, I would say it's possible that both are correct. There is a difference between actually using the batteries as I do and leaving them float for extended periods of time as backup for emergencies as the phone company used to do.
So how about some links on those gospels and the latest documents from Changhong. I am very interested in learning as much as I can. I will go searching but time is limited and it would be great to not have to try to find this stuff when it's location is probably already known.
That's all the time for now.
Brian

[Brian McGowan]

Got my test kit. Got one for testing fish tank water. My wife and I agree that it is probably a PH of 6.4. So yeah it's not 7.
I was thinking about the distilling water idea. I was thinking that if the water already has CO2 in it, distilling it won't take that out since it will still be in the steam. The only way to truly get perfectly clean water is to separate it into hydrogen and oxygen and then recombine it. That way the carbon won't go along for the ride. Ironically we actually have a ready source of hydrogen and oxygen from the batteries themselves. Making that system to collect the hydrogen and oxygen from the batteries and then recombining them over platinum beads would make some really clean water and save me from having to buy distilled water. As usual, I am finding a way to recycle.
Brian

[Rob Beckers]

The question is how much is too much (CO2)..
As you note, there's so little in the air that it would take time for any substantial amount to find its way into the electrolyte and react. Just maybe this is all a storm in bottle, where all the effort really makes little or no difference on the cells. By the way, wasn't that why Edison floated a layer of mineral oil on top of the electrolyte? To keep the atmosphere out.

I'm curious though; how come your electrolyte is around neutral, when it's KOH, which as far as I know is very, very caustic (high PH)?

-RoB-

[Brian McGowan]

Sorry Rob,
I tested the distilled water not the electrolyte. I was curious how acidic it was right out of the bottle since perfect is 7.
I believe you are correct about the mineral oil. I remember reading the same kind of thing. That's why I was considering filling the area above the electrolyte with argon. I thought maybe it would act like the mineral oil without having to actually use oil which I think is not recommended in these batteries.
From what I could ascertain, the amount of potassium carbonate that is too much is 50g/liter.
Brian

[Steven Fahey]

Brian,
I guess I don't check into GP Talk often enough. I've missed the fun up to now!
Thanks for relating your experience so far with the NiFe batteries, chinese-made as they may be.

Can I go back and ask about your grid-tie set-up? I am wondering about how much you can "sell to the grid" in a typical day - would you have had the same issues if you were able to sell more energy to the grid? Just looking at the 400W grid-tie inverter you mention, and doubling that would take care of the excess production from the solar panels while still maintaining a full bank of batteries.

But I understand that other issues concern you.
Since I have a big set of batteries that I got almost for free, the battery cost has yet to figure into my calculations. But someday these VRLA's will die (I'm killing them slowly) and replacement will be in order. Accounts from users of NiFe batteries are rare, so your postings, if you choose to continue them, will be valuable to me.

[Brian McGowan]

Steve,
I will continue my posts. I have been pretty busy lately.

In short the grid tied inverter never actually puts out 400W because it is an MPPT arrangement and it has a max voltage of 24volts which I never get to. Mostly if there is not a storm expected I let the inverter run 24/7 and I manage to put somewhere between 2-2.5kWh/day back onto the grid.
Mostly though I get my best value by using the power locally instead of grid power. For example, today I ran two loads of wash and the fridge for about 4 hours and made 3 cups of coffee as well as put at least 2kWh back onto the grid. I also charge all cell phones and the AV control system touch panel and 2 roombas. I also run my AV control system 24/7 all the time from the batteries and I have landscape lights that run based on a light sensor and at night in the summer I have a car radiator fan in the garage window blowing out that sucks air through the entire house instead of using a window fan attached to the grid. Car fan is 5 Amps at 12 volts or 60 watts versus the window fan which costs 250 watts. I get the same kind of savings from running the AV control system from the batteries. I have a 12V to 24V converter which uses .332kWh/day while the actual power supply for the unit uses .455kWh/day. Last week it was 2 loads of wash, the dishwasher, fridge for 4.5 hours and all the rest including the fan all night every day.
These batteries seem to be more capable of handling this use better than the FLAs I have had.
Brian

[Brian McGowan]

Yesterday marks one year since I placed my Nickel/Iron batteries into service. So far they are working fine and I am happy very with them.

[Rob Beckers]

Thanks for the update Brian! I for one am really interested in how things go with your batteries.

Did you check the electrolyte? Still going strong?

-RoB-

[Brian McGowan]

I have not checked the electrolyte yet but I want to now that it's been a year. Yes they are still going strong and I am liking that aspect. I have not had FLAs feel as strong after a year.
I will keep you posted.

Brian

[Brian McGowan]

I have successfully gotten myself banned from "Solar Panel Talk" with no warning, for "no reason" never to be reinstated again.

[Rob Beckers]

Congrats Brian! :eek:
What's your login name there? There must be something you've said to annoy management..

Or maybe it's just random punishment to keep the membership on their toes! To make sure nobody tries anything. :nuts:

Either way, this is a much nicer place to hang out anyway!

-RoB-

[Brian McGowan]

Rob,

It started with me posting my website link which I removed once he said I shouldn't. I guess I went back at Russ too hard but he also interjected stuff into the "discussion" that was not what I said and the rest is stuff he is willing to refute out of hand in spite of my data.

The "discussion" starts at this point in the thread. I am Brian1.
http://www.solarpaneltalk.com/showthread.php?3381-Nickel-Iron-vs-Lead-Acid-Off-Grid-battery-debate/page25

We can discuss after you have reviewed if you want.

Yes this is a much nicer place and I never had any intention of spending a large amount of time there. I just wanted to see what other people's experience with those batteries were and there is little real experience out there. It does not bother me that I am banned there.

Brian

[Rob Beckers]

Interesting read Brian!
Actually quite amusing: Russ comes across as the perpetually grumpy grandpa, throwing disparaging remarks left right and center with little provocation. Maybe that's the image he's going for. If so, he's succeeding! :argue::fish:

Russ is also dead-wrong when it comes to drain pipe heat exchangers: There was a report by the CRC or similar (serious) organization that tested this, they turned out to work remarkably well. I don't want to spend the time digging this up, anyone with sufficient time and Google should be able to. What I remember is that part of the reason why they were as effective as they are is that the small amount of drain water coming down the pipe during (say) a hot shower tends to film on the wall of the (copper) pipe, resulting in heat exchange that is pretty efficient. More so than you'd expect for something this simple. Russ doesn't seem to understand how they work either: The drain pipe is the same diameter (or close enough to it) in the heat exchanger as it is for the rest of the plumbing. There is no more risk of fouling then there is for the rest of the pipes.

If I had a vertical run of waste plumbing near my mechanical room I would install one in a heartbeat! Unfortunately I have no vertical space to work with, and these heat exchangers do not work well when installed horizontally (same report tested that too; now the waste water only occupies a small part of the inner pipe wall instead of 'filming').

Since the dangers of hydrogen gas were mentioned: I looked into this when we started doing off-grid installations involving large battery banks in enclosed spaces. To the best of what I can find about the subject it's actually very difficult to built up a concentration sufficient to be explosive. Hydrogen atoms, being as small and light as they are, tend to readily escape through the smallest crack. I've seen exploded battery tops due to hydrogen build-up, but never heard of anything beyond that.

I'll live it at for now..

-RoB-

[Brian McGowan]

You don't need to sell me on the exchanger. I have one and it works great and exactly as you described. And as I mentioned in that thread I replaced the cast iron drainage leading to it with PVC and now it recovers even more heat. I was seeing a 16.5 degree rise and now I am seeing a 22 degree rise. I just ran down and checked my thermometer and water coming out is at 87.1 degrees. Water going in is at 62.5. OK that is more like 24.6 degree rise.

3 of the 4 manufacturers of these devices I have found are Canadian. It is clear Russ doesn’t understand the physics of liquid flowing inside a vertical tube or how surface tension works. I learned about that in 5th grade.

I have the solution to your no vertical pipe problem. It is actually worth installing a sump arrangement to pump the water to the top of the exchanger. Only a minimal amount of energy is used to pump the water while the amount you recover is vast in comparison. The manufacturer of the one I use recommends a sump box with an inlet and an outlet and tying that outlet to a "Y" at the bottom of the exchanger so that if the pump ever fails or your power goes down the water will simply run out the outlet into the drainage system and you just won't recover the heat until you fix the problem. I think I can get you pics of such an installation if you want. Maybe even parts information.

As for the hydrogen, I did mostly build a hydrogen generator but it separates the hydrogen and oxygen and then would run the hydrogen through a container of platinum beads to react and thereby remove any oxygen in there so I would have pure hydrogen. Without oxygen the hydrogen can't combust so at that point it is no more dangerous than any other compressed gas. I stopped working on it when I decided it would work the way I expected and I didn't have any spare energy to store anyway. I will pick it back up when I am generating too much energy.
After I got banned and read back through I realized that at some point in the discussion he had started talking about HHO which I believe is hydrogen and oxygen together. I believe this may also be referred to as “Brown’s Gas” and yes storing that is probably extremely dangerous and I would never think of doing that. At best it is a use it as you make it kind of thing and I’m not sure that is even a good idea. So in the end he was talking about something totally different than what I was talking about and declared me the loony based on his lack of ability to follow the actual conversation. The whole thing came from my suggestion of the use of platinum beads to recombine the hydrogen and oxygen generated by charging the batteries back into water and letting that drip back into the batteries so you wouldn't have to refill them so often. I am pretty sure this is how those recombiners work. If I did make Brown’s gas and I ran it through platinum beads I would only end up with water again. So in the end he tells me it is unsafe, I compare it to other items found and used around the house, he comes back with it’s not as dangerous as those items, I declare it at least as safe as those items, he starts talking about something totally different and declares me a loony for it when I never mentioned what it is he is talking about.
The wind turbine I did concede doesn’t really kick in that much. However, it does kick in when I need it and does generate a nice supply of power when I need it too. It has not been down for any kind of maintenance since I put it up and if I ever get township approval to put up a worthwhile tower I will replace it with one that I build from scratch.
As for his declaration about “green” stuff, I specifically stay away from using that word. It appears exactly 4 times on my website. Once it is part of the name of a product, once it is preceded by the words “hopefully I can use” and twice I describe a room that I can totally run off grid as my “semi-green” room. Green is not what I’m here for. Efficiency and pollution free energy is.
I guess I am kind of annoyed that someone that clueless has any kind of power in a forum like that but I have no problem with never commenting there again.

[Bill Blake]

I have successfully gotten myself banned from "Solar Panel Talk" with no warning, for "no reason" never to be reinstated again.

Brian,

Some Forums have a history of running Nickel Iron folks out of the
group on a rail - for whatever reason.
Believe that I mentioned that a while back.
It just saves your time.

At another big Forum I got a real severe tongue-lashing for posting
a Link to a thread in SolarPanelTalk. They have more Posts than
SPS and have heard too many complaints about the place for
Too Long now. As usual it's all in writing - cause that's my style.

According to 'Mike the retired Engineer' in Northern CA
it sounds like the 'Chickens are starting to come home to roost'
right about at the three year mark for his Ni-fe.
It no Lie.

At first Mike was talking 10 years then 5 years and now it's
this Spring for the expensive
Nickel Iron Battery Electrolyte replacement.

Once he gives up the Electrolyte Test numbers then old Bill
will give up where to get Reagent Grade LiOH for the same money
as that 'Lab Grade' Lithium Hydroxide (garbage) that ships
with the Ni-Fe Cells.

What about all the wondrous claims coming from 'Your Man Brandon'
About the new

Iron Edison USA Nickel Iron Batteries.

Does any of the sales rap match up with the

Sandia Encell Technology Nickel Iron Battery Report

published this September?

Should I expose the whole deal - just for fun ??

Bill Blake

[Brian McGowan]

Well no great loss. I was just fishing for more battery information. I'll go anywhere for information. If they don't want my information so be it. I can still read without commenting. He wasn't even talking about batteries or even, in one case, the same thing I was talking about.
I do find it ironic that I spent the windy weekend after I got banned trying to find ways to use the power my little wind turbine was making. Fortunately these batteries seem much better at handling the fluctuations in power. I am considering getting a 24V PMG so I get charging sooner and in less wind but am reluctant to spend any more money in that direction without being able to put it up higher.

I am also considering getting a new inverter that can handle the higher input voltage. My current one trips off at 15 volts and that's annoying during the day when I am trying to do stuff and it's charging.

You know where to get good inexpensive chemicals? Don't keep us waiting!

You have information to divulge? Again, don't keep us waiting!

Brian

[Bill Blake]

Well no great loss. I was just fishing for more battery information. I'll go anywhere for information. If they don't want my information so be it. I can still read without commenting. He wasn't even talking about batteries or even, in one case, the same thing I was talking about.
I do find it ironic that I spent the windy weekend after I got banned trying to find ways to use the power my little wind turbine was making. Fortunately these batteries seem much better at handling the fluctuations in power. I am considering getting a 24V PMG so I get charging sooner and in less wind but am reluctant to spend any more money in that direction without being able to put it up higher.

I am also considering getting a new inverter that can handle the higher input voltage. My current one trips off at 15 volts and that's annoying during the day when I am trying to do stuff and it's charging.

You know where to get good inexpensive chemicals? Don't keep us waiting!

You have information to divulge? Again, don't keep us waiting!

Brian

==================================================
People that promise the Internet (in writing) to provide
information on the progress of their
Nickel Iron Electrolyte must Learn to follow those Lips.

Then and only then their bowl gets filled.

As far as your Inverter goes I heard about

www.hipoint.com.tw

but have not dealt with them yet.

There are people in Forums that can help you with
Wind Power.

Just type Bill Blake Nickel Iron into a search engine.

How about that

Sandia National Labs Encell Technology Nickel Iron

Battery Report ??


Bill Blake



Brian[/QUOTE]

[Bill Blake]

Believe it's actually

www.kipoint.com.tw

Using a phone to Post can be dangerous :-)

Bill Blake

[Bill Blake]

Brian,

Do you ever check the Specific Gravity of your Nickel Iron Batteries
Electrolyte?

If so what is it running as time goes bye.

Will you be the first NiFe Man in Internet history to
Achieve that feat and report to The Nation and the World.

Mr Edison left us written instructions about doing that little
Task in a timely fashion. He was rather 'point blank' about it.

His words may have gone mostly unnoticed - just like when
Changhong Batteries speaks softly about the matter.

Changhong and The Electric Indian :-) did have plenty to say about
'Good and Plenty' LiOH powder going into the NiFe Electrolyte and
what to expect from it.

Yes, Encell Technology jacked the Lithium Hydroxide UP to the moon
With the new Nickel Iron USA Batteries along with other big changes
to their new electrolyte.

Bill Blake

[Brian McGowan]

No I haven't had the chance but I can and will when I get the chance. I wanted to do it at the one year mark but that life thing keeps getting in the way.

Please specify the conditions under which I should do this.

As for the inverters, the only 12 volt one there trips off at 16 volts which I do exceed but is better than 15. The 24 volt versions need at least 20 volts.

Brian

[Bill Blake]

No I haven't had the chance but I can and will when I get the chance. I wanted to do it at the one year mark but that life thing keeps getting in the way.

Please specify the conditions under which I should do this.

As for the inverters, the only 12 volt one there trips off at 16 volts which I do exceed but is better than 15. The 24 volt versions need at least 20 volts.

Brian

If you have been using your NiFe Batteries very much, according to
Changhong Batteries, your behind schedule on testing your
Nickel Iron Electrolyte right now.

By (or before) 1915, Dr. Miller Reese Hutchison had definite ideas
About the NiFe Electrolyte as did Mr. Edison himself.

Basically Mr. Edison said to start whipping the hydrometer out at about
300 Cycles
To determine when it is necessary to empty the old solution out and
Put in new.

Period.
Short and sweet!

So take the 5 miinutes for a reading now.

For new Nife Electrolyte 50 times better than what you have now
It will run you $371 Delivered.

We will use the Changhong Formula from 2008 when they had such great
Results that they got off of the drop to 70% story and talked 90% of original
Capacity after some good use.

Anybody who Listens to Iron Edison USA after the Lies and atrocities they are
Putting on people, especially lately, will be in for a big Lesson.

I would love to be able to endorse the man if only he could put all that youth,
Talent and drive into something that's true and for real. It does exist.

Had a young family man call me that I became friendly with over a few
Survival Posts. The things he told me about his reasons for wanting to spend
All kinds of thousands of dollars on those Iron Edison USA Batteries
Got me Looking at them after 6 months of not putting 5 minutes into it.
A shocking pack of Lies along with the nonsense about your batteries as well.

Your NiFe Cells can be a Great investment but only with the truth.
Never by playing somebodies sweetboy due to a crooked sales pitch.

I'll address this new USA plague when I make the time.
Sure some will say it's a Witch Hunt however there is also up and coming
Battery Technology that I should soon be able to praise and feel good about.

It is what it is.

Just that a guy raising 3 or 4 children and working his tail off doesn't
Have the time to see it. Old Bill sees it for the both of us.

Bill Blake

[Brian McGowan]

Hopefully will be testing the solution this weekend. Soon as I figure out a way to extend the nozzle on the hydrometer so I can get it into the solution and suck some up. Assuming stat of charge or temperature have no effect on this reading as it would on FLAs since we are not actually precipitating material out of solution.
Brian

[Laurie Forbes]

Brian, had a look at the "other" forum (the one with the jerk(s) that kicked you off) and noted one thing in particular - the claim that NiFe batteries cost about 4X FLA. Don`t know how accurate that is but, if so, it seems like a deal-breaker from the outset as one could pooch a lot of FLAs for that difference and still be ahead. Was wondering if you have done a price comparison and how the numbers shook out...

[Brian McGowan]

I spent several years researching this. If price were the only consideration I would not have gotten them but I had other considerations. I have killed several sets of FLAs already. They just will not take the abuse that mother nature dishes out. I found the price was not the 4:1 either.
My batteries live out in the garage. FLAs want to be at 77F and have problems the further away from that temp you get in either direction.
FLAs want to be charged fully on a pretty regular basis or they sulfate and if left long enough that can be permanent.
FLAs suffer if you charge or discharge them at too great a rate or overcharge them.
I experienced all of these things when relying completely on charging provided by nature.
I had to find some alternative form of storage. These batteries appeared to fit the bill.
It is an ongoing experiment but I was willing to try for the good of the community. Everyone else was pretty much just talking and theorizing.
As for the other forum, it is their loss. There was only one person there that banned me. Everyone else there seemed to be able to discuss things in a civil manor. I will post information here that will not get posted there. I can't say yet if these are better or worse but so far they feel nice and strong still and I certainly don't baby them. I will keep this forum posted on my results.

[James Wang]

That sounds great. From where did you got these batteries?
I want to buy some batteries to simulate a magnet (https://www.rareearth-magnets.net/).

[Brian McGowan]

I would appreciate these results staying here on the forum and not being shared with other forums. If people from other forums want to take part in this they can come here and join this forum.

OK so I finally got to check the SG of my battery electrolyte.

Cell #1 1.20
Cell #2 1.19
Cell #3 1.19
Cell #4 1.19
Cell #5 1.18
Cell #6 1.19
Cell #7 1.18
Cell #8 1.19
Cell #9 1.19
Cell #10 1.19

This places the cells pretty much right in the middle of the green area on the scale.

Battery voltage was 13.8 volts but that shouldn't matter here. It was also pretty cold which also should not matter.

So Bill, what does this tell us?

For what it's worth I did a PH reading on some water I condensed from my dehumidifier and it read 6.2 which seems acidic.

Brian

P.S. James, I got my batteries from Iron Edison.

[Bill Blake]

Brian,

Alone, all your readings tell us is your above the minimum 1.16

(if they were Edison's). Same for Changhong NiFe Batteries.

Compared to your starting point and compared to future

readings, yet to come, we will have a little

Nickel Iron 'context thinking' :-)

Of coarse if you read the Changhong Operators and Maintenence Manual

they want a lot more than just a crude Specific Gravity reading.

Exactly when they want it is more 'context thinking' since that tune can

change a bit from document to document based on battery usage that may not

be spelled out good enough for your average bear.

Your best bet may be to save yourself a lot of grief and Learn how to buy good

chemicals for your next NiFe electrolyte.

The quality goes in before your name goes on :-)

A 'measure' (for the powder) and a little gram scale from ebay

along with a little warning from Old Bill will prevent any of them from

Playing you for the sweetboy.

I'm betting your electrolye was sub-standard from the jump.

Hope I'm wrong.

Bill Blake

[Brian McGowan]

Well I guess that is pretty good for now. I will try to take readings more often than once every 15 months but I guess I 'm not doing that bad.

Brian

[Bill Blake]

Brian, How are you keeping track of your capacity percentages?

Did you establish a baseline to compare against as time goes bye?

Are you aware that 'Diamond' John Mario D'Angelo at BeUtilityFree

Will not sell you a set of Nickel Iron Batteries without giving you a real good

Amp Hour Meter. Regular data entries and yearly NiFe Electrolyte

Chemical tests are all part of John's Longest NiFe Warranty in the business.

Other than foolish claims and being scared to death of Old Bill

just what kind of good service is your Changhong Reseller Laying on you?

Something isn't adding up around here!

How about that Sandia / Encell Technology Nickel Iron USA Battery Study?

Have you ever seen such a sorry piece of work as Long as you have lived??


Bill Blake

[Brian McGowan]

No I am no keeping track of my capacity percentages. How would I do that?
I assume you mean baseline for capacity percentages?
What does John consider to be a "real good" amp hour meter. I am skeptical of their worth to begin with.
What chemical tests does he want to see done?
I don't have time to pay attention to tests on products I am not considering buying. I can hardly keep up with what I own as it is.

Brian

[Bill Blake]

Brian,

Since you have made an investment your best bet will be to call
John himself at BeUtilityFree about your batteries. He has the
most experience with Nickel Iron Batteries in America - by far.
John will be glad to hear from you and answer your questions.
You can tell him old Bill Blake wanted you to call so you don't wind
up getting hose-ed for your money.

Remember it takes around 3 years, or so, for
The Chickens to come home to Roost
if you Listen to foolish advice
according to
Changhong Batteries in China.

They know a little after building your Nickel Iron Cells
for several Decades now.

It all depends on which game plan you wish to play by.
There are songs about your situation.


Bill Blake

[John DAngelo]

No I am no keeping track of my capacity percentages. How would I do that?
I assume you mean baseline for capacity percentages?
What does John consider to be a "real good" amp hour meter. I am skeptical of their worth to begin with.
What chemical tests does he want to see done?
I don't have time to pay attention to tests on products I am not considering buying. I can hardly keep up with what I own as it is.

Brian

Hello Brian,

"Specific gravity is the ratio of the density of a substance to the density (mass of the same unit volume) of a reference substance. Apparent specific gravity is the ratio of the weight of a volume of the substance to the weight of an equal volume of the reference substance. " Wikipedia. Therefore it is not a % figure.

Specific gravity (SG) of your cells only has ONE purpose. To find out of if your SG falls below 1.160. If and when it does then generally it is time to change out your electrolyte. When your SG falls BELOW 1.160 you generally start loosing capacity. SG does not tell you ANYTHING about your batteriescurrent capacity. At that point the cells should be capacity tested with industry standard testing methods which requirers an AH meter. You may or may not need an electrolyte change. We have documented running NiFe cells as high as 30% carbonate concentration (to our surprise) and still worked fine.

If you want to know which AH meter we consider "real good" contact me.

Not sure why you are "skeptical of their worth" but after I explain why you should have one and how our customers are using them you may reconsider that skepticism.

Using an off grid system without a good AH meter (not just a meter that shows Amps and voltage) is like driving any ICE car without a gas gauge or an EV car without a guage that shows you who much energy is in your battery pack. Imagine getting in an EV and having NO clue what your "gas tank" had in it. Also a good AH meter can be hooked up to a computer for graphing purposes, hooked to the internet and download the data collected. A good AH meter records thing like net current, power drawn from you battery - or + (watts), SOC, AH consumed, battery temp (no more guessing) deepest discharge in AH, average discharge dept, etc. You cannot get ANY of that information buy just "looking" at a battery bank.

When you have no actual knowledge and be able to get the FACTS then there is a lesser chance of misinformation which has been around for way to long. For example, with a good AH meter I can go into it and actually see how deep the battery bank has been discharged. If you had a 500 AH battery bank it would tell me that perhaps you withdrew 600 Ah from it. It would give the highest voltage recored and also the lowest. Its all recorded! Remember FACTS do not lie, but people lie and generally act in their own self interest. Most people are honest, it is the one that are not that can ruin you.

Look at what happened to Tesla Motors about a year ago. Some guy from the New York Times published an article stating that his Tesla did not "preform" as advertised as far as milage goes. Becuase Tesla cars have a lot of data logging capabilities Tesla went in and actually downloaded data from their office in CA from the car he drove and the data showed a totally different story. Later I believe the article was retracted or the author discredited. Again data does not lie, but it sure can catch liars!

You ask "what chemical tests does he (john) want to see". Have old Bill Blake send you a copy of our warranty. I am sure he still has it.

John D

[John DAngelo]

No I am no keeping track of my capacity percentages. How would I do that?
I assume you mean baseline for capacity percentages?
What does John consider to be a "real good" amp hour meter. I am skeptical of their worth to begin with.
What chemical tests does he want to see done?
I don't have time to pay attention to tests on products I am not considering buying. I can hardly keep up with what I own as it is.

Brian

FYI the cells that had over 30% carbonate concentration where Wuzhou (predecessor to Changhong) 500 Ah Chinese cells (20 years old now and have had two electrolyte changes, the last one about 6 months ago). They are operating in Idaho in my son's "off grid" system.

John D

[John DAngelo]

If you have been using your NiFe Batteries very much, according to

By (or before) 1915, Dr. Miller Reese Hutchison had definite ideas
About the NiFe Electrolyte as did Mr. Edison himself.

Basically Mr. Edison said to start whipping the hydrometer out at about
300 Cycles
To determine when it is necessary to empty the old solution out and
Put in new.

Period.
Short and sweet!

Bill,

Not sure where you get the information where Mr Edison said to "start whipping the hydrometer out at about 300 cycles". I have a very large amount of original manuals from the Edison Battery Storage company and have found no such thing language. As time passed the manuals got slight revisions.

Something you read in a say 1915 manual was not he same as it was in say a 1941 manual. In Bulletin 850X "General Instructions for the Operation and Care of the Edison Nickel-Iron- Alkaline Storage Battery" it no where states such a thing is required to start whipping out your hydrometer after 300 cycles. In fact no where in any of the manuals I have even mentions "cycles" in reference to electrolyte changes. It simple sates that there are certain reasons of ran electrolyte change and it seems it has noting to do with "cycles".

Here is what it has to say about electrolyte:

80. THROUGHOUT THE TOTAL LIFE OF THE CELL THE ELECTROLYTE GRADUALLY WEAKENS AND MAY NEED RENEWAL FORM ONE TO TWO TIMES, DEPENDING O TEH SEVERITY OF SERVICE AND IN SOM CASES WHERE MAINTENANCE AND OPERATION HAVE BEEN POOR, OR WHRE CONTAMINATION HAS BEEN ALLOWED BY TEH USE OF IMPURE WATER, ETC. A THIRD TIME MIGHT BE NECESSARY"

THEN IN 82. RUNNING A BATTERY WITH ELECTROLYTE OF LOWER SPECIFIC GRAVITY THAN 1.160 WILL PROVIDE SLUGGISHNESS, LOSS OF CAPACITY AND RAPID BREAKDOWN ON SEVERE SERVICE AND SHOULD NOT BE ALLOWED.

No mention of "cycles" any where in the manual.

Please document where exactly Mr. Edison stated to whip out the hydrometer after 300 cycles. If it was in 1915, things changed since then as all the documentation since then make s no such mention.

John D

[Bill Blake]

'Diamond' John Mario D'Angelo,

It's so nice to have you join the conversation John.
No Lie.

Old Bill always hopes that someone might call him out when he
makes his 'Internet First' proclamations.
You know how he always do :-)

I was hoping you would jump on it over at SolarPanelTalk
after Russ was too slick to take the bait and accept my challenge.
Naturally old Bill didn't like the way Brian was 'done' in that forum.

You see John I prefer 'The Horses Mouth' so when old Bill flaps his Lips
you can bet it's backed up good and plenty.
Otherwise I wouldn't have wound up with Google following me
like a puppy dog all over the Internet.

Naturally Mr. Edison didn't use the cute language that I did.
I admit to having a little fun with the NiFe subject.
It beats a hundred dollar bar tab and a DUI ;-)
Don't it?

However my words did come from Mr. Edison's Lips .. his dang self.
Not some third rate publication or something years after
His Excellency was dead.

John, study what Mr. Edison said directly.
Not some Lackey looking to make
a buck years later. :-)
OK?

Once you have had a chance to study what Mr. Edison said I'll dig everything
up for you.

We definintely don't want things like they got when You,

John D'Angelo, owner of The Legendary BeUtilityFree Company,

Brandon Williams of the IronEdison Company

and old Bill Blake

got into the hand to hand Melee at the
Survival Monkey Forum.

Kingfish called that thread

'Lets Have A Discussion About Nickel Iron Batteries'

It was fun but it was too much. I know you Loved it.

Thanks John,

old Bill Blake

Bill,

Not sure where you get the information where Mr Edison said to "start whipping the hydrometer out at about 300 cycles". I have a very large amount of original manuals from the Edison Battery Storage company and have found no such thing language. As time passed the manuals got slight revisions.

Something you read in a say 1915 manual was not he same as it was in say a 1941 manual. In Bulletin 850X "General Instructions for the Operation and Care of the Edison Nickel-Iron- Alkaline Storage Battery" it no where states such a thing is required to start whipping out your hydrometer after 300 cycles. In fact no where in any of the manuals I have even mentions "cycles" in reference to electrolyte changes. It simple sates that there are certain reasons of ran electrolyte change and it seems it has noting to do with "cycles".

Here is what it has to say about electrolyte:

80. THROUGHOUT THE TOTAL LIFE OF THE CELL THE ELECTROLYTE GRADUALLY WEAKENS AND MAY NEED RENEWAL FORM ONE TO TWO TIMES, DEPENDING O TEH SEVERITY OF SERVICE AND IN SOM CASES WHERE MAINTENANCE AND OPERATION HAVE BEEN POOR, OR WHRE CONTAMINATION HAS BEEN ALLOWED BY TEH USE OF IMPURE WATER, ETC. A THIRD TIME MIGHT BE NECESSARY"

THEN IN 82. RUNNING A BATTERY WITH ELECTROLYTE OF LOWER SPECIFIC GRAVITY THAN 1.160 WILL PROVIDE SLUGGISHNESS, LOSS OF CAPACITY AND RAPID BREAKDOWN ON SEVERE SERVICE AND SHOULD NOT BE ALLOWED.

No mention of "cycles" any where in the manual.

Please document where exactly Mr. Edison stated to whip out the hydrometer after 300 cycles. If it was in 1915, things changed since then as all the documentation since then make s no such mention.

John D

[John DAngelo]

Bill,

All I asked was to document your source about you comment from Mr Edison about having to "whip out your hydrometer after 300 cycles" Oh those were you words paraphrased? My my. Yet you babble on about this and that an totally avoid providing me with an answer.

Here is what i get:

"However my words did come from Mr. Edison's Lips .. his dang self.
Not some third rate publication or something years after
His Excellency was dead." that tell no one anything Bill. Just more babble.

I guess if you cannot actually document your findings then I guess one has to assume you are just make things up. Right?

John D

[Brian McGowan]

Thank you John for your amp hour meter information. I will give it a look over when I get a chance.
The more information the better. Thanks for joining the conversation.

[Rob Beckers]

Here I was thinking that "old Bill" was just a figure of speech. Now we know Bill heard it from Edison himself! :nuts: ("The horse's mouth" as Bill put it).

Edison joined that place where the batteries are always charged and the electrolyte never goes stale in... let's see... 1931! That makes Bill at least (well, you do the math)...

I take my hat off to that! :yo:

-RoB-

[Bill Blake]

Still diggin for the source of the most profound statement
ever made in Nickel Iron Battery history!

Could everyone else have missed it?

After all the whole Nickel Iron Battery subject was ruled by
Lies, myths and planted stories before old Bill rode in.
Read the foolish history of the whole NiFe conversation.

John D'Angelo being here.
Do you really think that just happened by accident ;-)

The statement has to be signed by
Mr. Edison himself.

Something like <snip>

"Therefore, only a small quantitity of such electrolyte
is necessary, permitting a very close proximity of the
plates, and rendering it unecessary to take hydrometer
readings until about three hundred cycles of
charge and discharge have been made;
this simply to determine when it is necessary to
empty the old solution out and put in new."

Yeah! Something like that.

Then yet another confirmation about using the hydrometer
in the same Document, signed yet again by
Thomas A. Edison.

Yeah, that's da ticket :-)

old Bill Blake

[Bill Blake]

Bill,

All I asked was to document your source about you comment from Mr Edison about having to "whip out your hydrometer after 300 cycles" Oh those were you words paraphrased? My my. Yet you babble on about this and that an totally avoid providing me with an answer.

Here is what i get:

"However my words did come from Mr. Edison's Lips .. his dang self.
Not some third rate publication or something years after
His Excellency was dead." that tell no one anything Bill. Just more babble.

I guess if you cannot actually document your findings then I guess one has to assume you are just make things up. Right?

John D

'Diamond' John Mario,

Found a couple of the quotes about using the battery hydrometer
to determine when to empty your Edison NiFe Cells and fill dem with
fresh Nickel Iron Electrolyte.

You heard it ! :-)

One of the quotes has now been published here at
GreenPowerTalk.

Now I need to digs up a Link to the Legendary 28 Page Document
that the quotes come from.

Your mini seminar about Amp Hour Meters was very nice - indeed-ie.
What is the next subject that you will teach us John.
I can't waits :-)

old Bill Blake

[John DAngelo]

Bill,

Thanks for the complement. Not sure if it was sincere or you being a "smart ass". Yes I am a strong believer in a battery monitoring system in ANY battery based system. A battery is basically a fuel tank and and any type of fuel tank can be monitored for energy capacity. I cannot imagine driving my electric car without a bar graft showing em my energy content in my battery.

So what are your thought about the Encell Nickel Iron battery? One of my associates claims or thinks that this battery has cadmium plates in it so it is not a true nickel iron battery. Not sure where he got this idea.

I read the Sandia lab report and from what I read the cell capacity of the cell was confirmed by Sandia testing. That said there where also some odd parts of the report that did not make a lot of sense.

John D

[John DAngelo]

[QUOTE=Bill Blake;27931]Still diggin for the source of the most profound statement
ever made in Nickel Iron Battery history!

Something like <snip>

"Therefore, only a small quantitity of such electrolyte
is necessary, permitting a very close proximity of the
plates, and rendering it unecessary to take hydrometer
readings until about three hundred cycles of
charge and discharge have been made;
this simply to determine when it is necessary to
empty the old solution out and put in new."

Yeah! Something like that.

Yeah something like that!

A lot of things changed in the 70+ some years the original nickel iron battery was made by The Thomas Edison Battery Storage company. Just as with anything, things change over time. All the manuals I have read on the original nickel iron cells never mention having to take a hydrometer reading after 300 cycles, they just say (as I quoted in a prior post) that when the cell starts losing battery capacity to check the electrolyte as over time the KOH participates out of the electrolyte rand eventually weakens to the point (SG 1.165) where the cells will hot hold there capacity. I do not see the relevance or significant of what Mr Edison said really. I sure would like to know what date he said this.

IMO the days of flooded cells containing liquid electrolyte) are numbered. The future belongs to cells that are "solid state" or have no liquid electrolyte in them. Yes there are "flow" batteries that are now on the market, but they are just plain "messy". People gavitate towards "easy" and from everything I say at the last PV show in Las Vegas ALL the main players (LG, SAMSUNG,etc.) will be offering battery BOXES that look like cabinets instead of a typical L16 set up with all this exposed wires, smelly fumes, watering issues, etc. The future i going to be " batteries in a box".

John D

[Bill Blake]

John,

Old Bill is visiting a remote location with no Internet.
Using a phone conection.

Been waiting for someone, somewhere to talk about those

Encell Technology Nickel Iron Batteries / AKA

Iron Edison USA Nickel Iron Batteries.

When I get to a computer I will get back to you on
Everything that you talk about.

That Sandia National Labs / Encell Technology Report was by
Far the most shameful, foolish piece of work ever produced
By Sandia.

A simple Google Search brings it up.

I ran out of time for this subject other than acting as a force
to keep thieves in Line. Because of a young friend that wanted to
buy those garbage batteries I got sucked in for a Look, including
the patents.

It's shocking that they can find people stupid enough to hook.

Sounds like you better read that Sandia report again.

Normaly there was a dollar involved before Mr. Edison or
anyone else makes us smart about Nickel Iron.

In this case it was Edison's Chief (Doctor) Engineer and
Personal Representative who wrote the Statements
for the dollar in 1915.

Mr. Edison signed the page.

So you gets a 2 for 1 sale as only old Bill would provide
for free :-).

Bill Blake


[QUOTE=Bill Blake;27931]Still diggin for the source of the most profound statement
ever made in Nickel Iron Battery history!

Something like <snip>

"Therefore, only a small quantitity of such electrolyte
is necessary, permitting a very close proximity of the
plates, and rendering it unecessary to take hydrometer
readings until about three hundred cycles of
charge and discharge have been made;
this simply to determine when it is necessary to
empty the old solution out and put in new."

Yeah! Something like that.

Yeah something like that!

A lot of things changed in the 70+ some years the original nickel iron battery was made by The Thomas Edison Battery Storage company. Just as with anything, things change over time. All the manuals I have read on the original nickel iron cells never mention having to take a hydrometer reading after 300 cycles, they just say (as I quoted in a prior post) that when the cell starts losing battery capacity to check the electrolyte as over time the KOH participates out of the electrolyte rand eventually weakens to the point (SG 1.165) where the cells will hot hold there capacity. I do not see the relevance or significant of what Mr Edison said really. I sure would like to know what date he said this.

IMO the days of flooded cells containing liquid electrolyte) are numbered. The future belongs to cells that are "solid state" or have no liquid electrolyte in them. Yes there are "flow" batteries that are now on the market, but they are just plain "messy". People gavitate towards "easy" and from everything I say at the last PV show in Las Vegas ALL the main players (LG, SAMSUNG,etc.) will be offering battery BOXES that look like cabinets instead of a typical L16 set up with all this exposed wires, smelly fumes, watering issues, etc. The future i going to be " batteries in a box".

John D

[Brian McGowan]

Just checking in.
The "junk" wind turbine has been working a lot lately. I am thinking of getting a 24 volt generator because the battery runs at a higher voltage. They also make an 18 volt version. I have seen this one putting out 22 amps in the past couple of days. It is nice to wake up to a battery that is pretty charged already as the sun is coming up.

Also, the battery is still doing really well. It is cold as blazes in the garage and it is doing just fine. There is a bottle of distilled water out there that has been a frozen block for about 2 weeks now. Windex with ammonia is frozen solid. Air temp is 22 degrees. Battery temp is 32 degrees. It doesn't seem to care. I know when I had FLAs out there they were doing pretty poor at temps higher than this.

Brian

[Larry Taylor]

Brian, Bill, other interested parties: Hello and greetings. My wife and I are in the planning/design phase of building an off grid home. In the course of my research, I first stumbled onto the website http://www.nickel-iron-battery.com/, followed by Iron Edison. Of course, I became greatly excited by the sales pitch about a miracle battery that can handle 80% DOD for 30+ years and 2 changes of electrolyte.

Thankfully, I have done more research and this led me to a number of posts in several locations by Old Bill Blake! I admit, at first I did not want to hear what he said, and was put off by "speaking in riddles" as opposed to just clearly and simply stating the issues related to NiFe technology and how to "do it right".

While I would prefer a simple, direct and plainly stated summary, I believe I have processed a good bit of what you are saying, Bill. However, much like Brian, I am trying to juggle a life, career, family, and designing a home to live in while educating myself on PV systems and battery technology because I cannot just trust a contractor to take my money and build me a life support system. It is our lives that will depend on this, and us who live (or die) with the consequences of getting it wrong. In a less dramatic instance, it is a big pile of money and we do not have so much as to spend it unwisely.

So, Bill, I continue to try to follow the story you are laying out for us. I have read the melee at survival monkey, and some of the posts at fieldlines and solar panel talk. However, this thread seems to be one of the more comprehensive and most recent versions of this conversation. So this is the forum I have joined, mainly for the purpose of discussing these issues with you. If some of this is best handled off forum, I would happily discuss things in private messages and/or email.

Brian, I thank you so much for giving us your real world experiences with Changdong NiFe batteries, and I would like to have more details of your situation, such as your loads, charge/discharge, DOD%, etc. As with Bill, I am willing to have these conversations either on or off forum as you prefer.

I will try to track down any newer posting of Mike the retired engineer/water boy related to his NiFe experiences, but I hope that this forum will be able to be my primary source of the information I need to make my battery decision.

Thank you and I look forward to any information we can discuss.
Larry

[Brian McGowan]

Hello Larry and welcome.
I am more than happy to discuss what I am doing and what I have learned here on the forum.
I think you will find better discussion on this board. You will no longer see me on Solar panel talk and if you read this thread and the thread over there you know why.
I have run this battery pretty hard. I have no mercy. Loads vary and the system is always changing. It does not always get charged fully which is one of the things that killed the FLAs. I am getting a amp hour meter soon so it will be easier to track DOD and so forth. I can tell you it has kept me in heat and light during the last ice storm. Some times I use them to run the fridge for hours and a run of the dishwasher and two loads of laundry and my computer room as well as charging everything that has a rechargeable battery in it. I usually have a static load from my AV control system but I just got a new one and I have not wired it into the house yet. That load was about 1/3kWh/day but it replaced almost 1/2 kWh of grid power. I also have a load from my landscape lighting which is controlled by a light sensor so that time period varies throughout the year based on day light hours.
You probably saw my last post about the cold they are living in right now and they also live in the heat when it is hot out. FLAs don't stand for that very well.
As for Mike, are you talking about Mike90250 at solar panel forum who owns a set of batteries?
I have a website at
http://home.comcast.net/~bigvid/
showing what I do. It is never up to date as the website is not really my priority but it's better than a thousand words. There is not even a pic of my batteries up there. You may find some other things there that could help you.

That's all for now.
Brian

[Bill Blake]

Larry,

Try to keep in mind dat we now have the Legendary
'Diamond' John Mario D'Angelo hanging around.

Limiting your questions to old Bill might be cheating thyself, bigtime.

For the most part I don't put much time into Nickel Iron now and
still need to get back to John about the wonders of the

1915 Book by His Excellency,

Dr. Miller Reese Hutchison,

Chief Engineer to and Personal Representative of

Thomas A. Edison.

The Chief can help you get your mind right :-)

The melee at The Survival Monkey forum was fun.
I just wish dat your man Brandon Williams from Iron Edison would not
run off every time he gets a little whippin.

John D' Angelo
( The Granddaddy of Chinese Nickel Iron Batteries in America )

from the BeUtilityFree Company
is always ready for another taste. I Likes that in a man !
So I'm careful how I do da man nowadays.

So Larry list your Nickelodeon ;-) questions one by one.
Old Bill feels no need for a Seminar.

Glad that both you and John could make it here

to the Green Power Talk forum. :-)


Bill Blake





Brian, Bill, other interested parties: Hello and greetings. My wife and I are in the planning/design phase of building an off grid home. In the course of my research, I first stumbled onto the website http://www.nickel-iron-battery.com/, followed by Iron Edison. Of course, I became greatly excited by the sales pitch about a miracle battery that can handle 80% DOD for 30+ years and 2 changes of electrolyte.

Thankfully, I have done more research and this led me to a number of posts in several locations by Old Bill Blake! I admit, at first I did not want to hear what he said, and was put off by "speaking in riddles" as opposed to just clearly and simply stating the issues related to NiFe technology and how to "do it right".

While I would prefer a simple, direct and plainly stated summary, I believe I have processed a good bit of what you are saying, Bill. However, much like Brian, I am trying to juggle a life, career, family, and designing a home to live in while educating myself on PV systems and battery technology because I cannot just trust a contractor to take my money and build me a life support system. It is our lives that will depend on this, and us who live (or die) with the consequences of getting it wrong. In a less dramatic instance, it is a big pile of money and we do not have so much as to spend it unwisely.

So, Bill, I continue to try to follow the story you are laying out for us. I have read the melee at survival monkey, and some of the posts at fieldlines and solar panel talk. However, this thread seems to be one of the more comprehensive and most recent versions of this conversation. So this is the forum I have joined, mainly for the purpose of discussing these issues with you. If some of this is best handled off forum, I would happily discuss things in private messages and/or email.

Brian, I thank you so much for giving us your real world experiences with Changdong NiFe batteries, and I would like to have more details of your situation, such as your loads, charge/discharge, DOD%, etc. As with Bill, I am willing to have these conversations either on or off forum as you prefer.

I will try to track down any newer posting of Mike the retired engineer/water boy related to his NiFe experiences, but I hope that this forum will be able to be my primary source of the information I need to make my battery decision.

Thank you and I look forward to any information we can discuss.
Larry

[Larry Taylor]

Bill!
Good to hear from you, and so quickly, too ;)

It did not escape my notice that we may have “Diamond” John here as well. I hope to learn from you both. If John is still in Ft Lupton, I may have to visit him as I am within driving range, perhaps even for an Edison car (if the batteries have been reconditioned and fully charged).

I don’t want to give a seminar, I hope to get one or maybe a few (John?)... But, to set the stage I will list what I think I have learnt; if my foundation is cracked I don't want to try to build a skyscraper on it. If I have something wrong, or not quite right please school me as needed, I don’t cry easy.

1) It seems there are two alternatives in NiFe: Zappworks or Changhong. I do not yet have a good handle on how well restored Edison cells transplanted into plastic boxes compare. You say that the plastic box rules out in situ rejuvenation, per Edison’s methods. I have not had time to read all the patent literature yet. Regarding Changhong: from all that I have read, and from my own introductory contacts with the two, BUF makes less "wild claims" about NiFe than Iron Ed. I agree that the fact that Changhong sells so many of these around the world means that they have a place, but I am not sure if MY battery room will be such a place.

2) Daily 80% DOD = DOA in three years. However it seems 20-30% DOD with appropriate charge regimens and good electrolyte may well allow 30+ years (10,000 cycles +). Means battery bank should be much larger than what many US resellers say, and they should be treated more kindly than they say.

3) Quality of KOH and LiOH are essential. The reagents supplied with new batteries are often poor, and LiOH should be 40% instead of 20%. Distilled/DI water with as little dissolved CO2 as possible. Quality of KOH can vary. The best grades available from companies like Fisher Scientific are >85% pure with <1% KCO3, less than <0.001% Iron for $50/kg. Technical grade is such crap that they do not even tell you the % KCO3. LiOH can be had at 56% purity cheaply, but 98%+ can be had for $100/kg

4) High water consumption seems to be a byproduct of too high DOD / overcharging / too fast charge (discharge too?) rate. Charging routines appear to be a major key, but I do not think I have the answer yet. I see C/5 charge and discharge rates (from the resellers), but your talk about the problems of the “Blivet charging routine” seems to make sense. What is “good”? To be honest, I do not understand the terminology 0.2 ItA and google has not been a good teacher. Is this an upside down way of saying C/5? I see "0.2ItA for 8 hrs" in some Changhong literature.

5) in some of your posts you mention that we should use a 20-30% slice of the bank’s capacity, but it may not be the top 20-30%. I find this interesting and would like more info.

6) Monitoring DOD by use of an Ah meter. Seems reasonable and I would want to include one to have the best data about battery status. This goes for voltmeter, specific gravity, and temperature too.

There may be more, but these are the major themes that I see that I as a consumer can do something about. I want to understand the general theory of batterytivty. I would LOVE to see the WWI USN submarine battery features of electrolyte filtration and ease of drain and fill, but we are building this year or next, so I am limited to our current reality. And, while I am intrigued by Edison’s “perfect” battery, if I really should instead buy a lifetime supply of Rolls 5000’s, I would like to know that, too.


Now, for the questions I think I can ask whether or not I have learnt anything: Bill, John, others?

1) Why is Mike the retired engineer/water boy having to add so much water? His battery bank is large, his loads seem “reasonable”, but I do not remember in great detail. His PV array is around 3-4kW if I remember right, which I would think would make it hard for him to boil them the way he seems to be doing. I take his water consumption to mean he is beating them like the proverbial rented mule and they will die well before they should. Electrolyte, charging voltage/amperage/time/rate?


2) The nature of an off grid system is that seasonal variation is the name of the game. We are building where the “full sun day” averages 4.2 hr. Longer in summer, shorter in winter (of course). In winter clouds can move in for days at a time. This means that with lifestyle adjustments in the mid spring to mid fall the batteries really only need to run modest overnight loads: fridge, freezer, lighting (LED) and some small or short loads such as microwave, etc. Low DOD, easily charged up next day. But from late fall through winter into spring there will be deeper draws and less time to recharge. We can add a couple of small wind turbines like whisper 400’s to try to stretch out charging time (avoid/reduce blivet). What about this approach? Wind is variable, but some is better than none. How does a life cycle chart look when one is kind to the batteries 8 to 9 months out of the year, but slaps them up a bit in winter? Is this where the “which 20-30% slice to use” notion could come in?

3) John: I see from some of your discussions with old Bill on another forum, some mention as far back as 2011 about a better way to drain and refill the cells, similar to the submarine batteries. Has this faded away? It would be a great feature.

I do not expect that the grand unified theory of batterytivity will become clear to me in a single post, but I do have an important decision to make soon, and would like to make the best-informed choice that I can. Thank you for your time, and any useful info you can provide to me, even if it is to buy a lifetime supply of Rolls 5000, or LiFePO4.

[Brian McGowan]

For what it's worth, I read the thread over at survival monkey for giggles. The guy who started the thread (I can't remember his name off the top of my head) who apparently got disgusted with the debate made as one of his negative points the fact that they needed so much distilled water that he felt he would need to store many hundreds of gallons of distilled water which I thought was not realistic considering how easy it is to make distilled water in a variety of ways.
One if the things that got me into trouble on Solar Panel Talk was me talking about a hydrogen generator that I have designed and the fact that I was going to run the hydrogen through platinum beads to react any oxygen with the hydrogen to remove it and make oxygen free hydrogen so I wouldn't have to worry about any kind of explosion issues.
There was also discussion of battery caps that have platinum in them to do just that and return the water to the battery so you don't need to water them so often. The problem with them was that the alkali in the vapor from the batteries would eventually destroy the caps but that was also similar with FLA batteries so I didn't really see a difference there. I thought if the caps were raised from the top of the battery with a piece of PVC pipe that the mist and vapor would settle out leaving only the hydrogen and oxygen to reach the caps thus prolonging their life.
My other thought was to just make a solar still and stick it is the sun and let it work all the time which should provide more than ample distilled water to provide for whatever the batteries need.
Just my thoughts about the water issue. I have not found that much water usage although it is much more than FLA. I find it a small issue in the grand scheme of things.
Brian

[Bill Blake]

Larry,

Sounds like it's going to boil down to how Deep is the Love and
how Long is the Dollar. :-)

That seminar line came out wrong. I love to hear about NiFe
but just don't have forever to put into it.

You sound like a rare bird that will actually put a little work into
getting to the bottom of a few of the secrets of the ancients.

Your journey starts with the early Edison Nickel Iron Patents
where he comments on what happened with the graphite and
then how he was leaning towards cobalt and other metals instead.
This is the real million dollar riddle finally getting solved once you reach
Nickel Iron never, never land :-)

The battery answers your looking for get ( involved ).
How heavy duty you find the survival end of things will determine a lot.
Once you spend a little time with Mr.Edisons metals we can
move forward.

Yes, that is the real John D'Angelo here.

In reality he is actually an old Bill fan :-)

Just like Kingfish actually Loved us stomping his
Thread, real fine like, over at The Survival Monkey forum. : -)
That was not the last time that I heard from da man.

Bill Blake

[Rob Beckers]

Larry, welcome to the forum!
Feel free to discuss things here (in this thread, or start new threads as needed). We're pretty relaxed at this forum, and pretty tolerant (at least I like to think so). The only thing I won't stand for is blatant advertisements. Discussing brands of batteries and such is fine of course.

Regarding your dilemma of what battery technology to choose, I can fully understand the issues. I'm in the business of installing systems, including quite a few off-grid systems these days (and they seem to be getting larger and larger). I too am trying to figure out if NiFe is worth it, and something I can install at my customer's sites. Installers are (naturally) conservative: I can't experiment, if it fails I'll be paying for it myself. With battery banks these days running around $10K for an off-grid household that's a bit much to 'try things out'.

So I'm following this discussion with great interest! For now I'll stick with lead-acid batteries though.

-RoB-

[Andy Rhody]

Rob said:

"So I'm following this discussion with great interest!"

Me too!

The point is, could the Edison Iron Nickel Battery be more practical than the more popular lead acid battery for storage?

My concern is that we have a bunch of new people coming in around here who although seem to have a great deal of knowledge and maybe experince about the Edison type battery, they seem to be obsessed with poetry, prose, drama and espically "EGO".

Instead of getting to the point of science, some seem to ramble on about whatever.

I come home every day from a rough time at work, I check in here to learn stuff, and I have to sift through a bunch of "stuff" to learn something.

This place is known for logic and science and good information. I respect what everyone has suffered on other boards as I have too but we're all here now.

Could we all get down to the point and learn new stuff?

And welcome to the family.

[Bill Blake]

Larry,

There are no short concise answers to this Rabbit hole of a
NiFe Battery subject because it is still evolving 116 years later.

I ran a couple of options for you today and spoke with one of
'da boys' at the top of the RE game as well.
Don't run out buying any batteries for a few days.

Have you looked at Aqueous Hybrid Ion Battery technology yet?
I'm told the 3rd Generation of these wonders will be
with us later this year along with price reductions.

There is a lot going on right now and there is possibly more
coming up about renovating Changhong Nickel Iron Cells
when old Bill gets to it and / or feel likes it.

If it was me TODAY I would probably run down to Walmart
and get some fairly cheap Johnson Controls deep cycle
batteries guaranteed unconditionally for 2 years
and rock on.

In 2 - 3 years some things should be right
that are not right today.

I would baby da cheap batteries by running a small
Yamaha Inverter Generator slow charging the badboys
all night Long :-) Or until it runs out it's little bit of gas.
Six year warranty on the Yamaha.
3 years plus 3 years.
Change the little bit of oil quite regularly.

Then do it right when the time is right - near eliminating
a generator altogether.

Thousands of people have owned Nickel Iron Batteries in the
last 50 years. Just 'Diamond' John alone sold thousands of cells.
Why are we Lucky to fill the fingers of one hand with
good first hand accounts about them?

Larry, you never said what size of a battery bank your looking at.
Why more usage in the winter?


Bill Blake





Bill!
Good to hear from you, and so quickly, too ;)

It did not escape my notice that we may have “Diamond” John here as well. I hope to learn from you both. If John is still in Ft Lupton, I may have to visit him as I am within driving range, perhaps even for an Edison car (if the batteries have been reconditioned and fully charged).

I don’t want to give a seminar, I hope to get one or maybe a few (John?)... But, to set the stage I will list what I think I have learnt; if my foundation is cracked I don't want to try to build a skyscraper on it. If I have something wrong, or not quite right please school me as needed, I don’t cry easy.

1) It seems there are two alternatives in NiFe: Zappworks or Changhong. I do not yet have a good handle on how well restored Edison cells transplanted into plastic boxes compare. You say that the plastic box rules out in situ rejuvenation, per Edison’s methods. I have not had time to read all the patent literature yet. Regarding Changhong: from all that I have read, and from my own introductory contacts with the two, BUF makes less "wild claims" about NiFe than Iron Ed. I agree that the fact that Changhong sells so many of these around the world means that they have a place, but I am not sure if MY battery room will be such a place.

2) Daily 80% DOD = DOA in three years. However it seems 20-30% DOD with appropriate charge regimens and good electrolyte may well allow 30+ years (10,000 cycles +). Means battery bank should be much larger than what many US resellers say, and they should be treated more kindly than they say.

3) Quality of KOH and LiOH are essential. The reagents supplied with new batteries are often poor, and LiOH should be 40% instead of 20%. Distilled/DI water with as little dissolved CO2 as possible. Quality of KOH can vary. The best grades available from companies like Fisher Scientific are >85% pure with <1% KCO3, less than <0.001% Iron for $50/kg. Technical grade is such crap that they do not even tell you the % KCO3. LiOH can be had at 56% purity cheaply, but 98%+ can be had for $100/kg

4) High water consumption seems to be a byproduct of too high DOD / overcharging / too fast charge (discharge too?) rate. Charging routines appear to be a major key, but I do not think I have the answer yet. I see C/5 charge and discharge rates (from the resellers), but your talk about the problems of the “Blivet charging routine” seems to make sense. What is “good”? To be honest, I do not understand the terminology 0.2 ItA and google has not been a good teacher. Is this an upside down way of saying C/5? I see "0.2ItA for 8 hrs" in some Changhong literature.

5) in some of your posts you mention that we should use a 20-30% slice of the bank’s capacity, but it may not be the top 20-30%. I find this interesting and would like more info.

6) Monitoring DOD by use of an Ah meter. Seems reasonable and I would want to include one to have the best data about battery status. This goes for voltmeter, specific gravity, and temperature too.

There may be more, but these are the major themes that I see that I as a consumer can do something about. I want to understand the general theory of batterytivty. I would LOVE to see the WWI USN submarine battery features of electrolyte filtration and ease of drain and fill, but we are building this year or next, so I am limited to our current reality. And, while I am intrigued by Edison’s “perfect” battery, if I really should instead buy a lifetime supply of Rolls 5000’s, I would like to know that, too.


Now, for the questions I think I can ask whether or not I have learnt anything: Bill, John, others?

1) Why is Mike the retired engineer/water boy having to add so much water? His battery bank is large, his loads seem “reasonable”, but I do not remember in great detail. His PV array is around 3-4kW if I remember right, which I would think would make it hard for him to boil them the way he seems to be doing. I take his water consumption to mean he is beating them like the proverbial rented mule and they will die well before they should. Electrolyte, charging voltage/amperage/time/rate?


2) The nature of an off grid system is that seasonal variation is the name of the game. We are building where the “full sun day” averages 4.2 hr. Longer in summer, shorter in winter (of course). In winter clouds can move in for days at a time. This means that with lifestyle adjustments in the mid spring to mid fall the batteries really only need to run modest overnight loads: fridge, freezer, lighting (LED) and some small or short loads such as microwave, etc. Low DOD, easily charged up next day. But from late fall through winter into spring there will be deeper draws and less time to recharge. We can add a couple of small wind turbines like whisper 400’s to try to stretch out charging time (avoid/reduce blivet). What about this approach? Wind is variable, but some is better than none. How does a life cycle chart look when one is kind to the batteries 8 to 9 months out of the year, but slaps them up a bit in winter? Is this where the “which 20-30% slice to use” notion could come in?

3) John: I see from some of your discussions with old Bill on another forum, some mention as far back as 2011 about a better way to drain and refill the cells, similar to the submarine batteries. Has this faded away? It would be a great feature.

I do not expect that the grand unified theory of batterytivity will become clear to me in a single post, but I do have an important decision to make soon, and would like to make the best-informed choice that I can. Thank you for your time, and any useful info you can provide to me, even if it is to buy a lifetime supply of Rolls 5000, or LiFePO4.

[Larry Taylor]

Hi Bill, and Brian, Rob, and Andy (and anyone else who hasn’t chimed in just yet—John D’A?)

Brian-thank you for your words of welcome and for being one of the few who are sharing their experiences with these batteries. It is frustrating that there are so few sources of info from actual users out there and your willingness to take this on is very appreciated. This forum (so far) seems to be free of voices like “Sunking”, and I hope we can all continue to treat the topic like science, as opposed to “us vs them”

Rob-thank you for the kind welcome to the forum. I have come here looking for answers and will probably find more questions, but hopefully we can all move a bit downfield from where we started. I am happy to see that you do Off grid system design in a high latitude. I will value any advice you can give me far more than someone who operates in southern Arizona. We will be above 45 N.

Andy-I understand where you are coming from and what you are saying. My first impression of Old Bill was that he is like talking to Yoda. I also think he may know more about NiFe than just about anyone alive today and he isn’t trying to sell me anything. I have chosen to open my mind and try to “feel the force”. The path may not be short or straight, but it is my hope that we can arrive some logical and concise summary of the state of, and best uses for, NiFe technology. However my main goal is to make the best choice I can for my situation/home power system and I only want to do it once.

John D’Angelo, if you are out there, I hope you will join us again at some point. I will refrain from using Old Bill’s nickname for you from here forward, as we have not developed the unique relationship that you have with him. I am within a reasonable drive from you and would like to see your setup and learn what I can. I will most certainly not be an “easy sale”, but if the product is right for us, my money is good…

Bill, I sincerely thank you for your interest in my situation. I am willing to take this journey with you (we’ll see how far) and am not afraid to look in rabbit holes, sometimes there is a nice, fat rabbit at the bottom. I am hoping to get to the Edison patents you mentioned over the weekend, and I am about to search for the Aqueous Hybrid Ion batteries. I have never heard of this technology, but a few weeks ago that was true for NiFe.

All-I value all advice and input that is given as long as you realize that in the end the choices and consequences are mine. So that you all have an idea of how the plan is shaping up:

1) Off grid home. Logix ICF construction. In floor heat and DHW from wood fired boiler/Solar thermal. Woodstove backup. Well with large storage tanks, gravity feed to house.

2) PV array between 8-10kW, our average solar day is 4.2h. Should have excess capacity in spring, summer and fall, but short winter days and overcast conditions can occur. Seems to me that we need to size for winter to the extent that we can. Would prefer not to be dependent on heavy generator (fuel) use to get through winter. Looking at Military surplus diesel genset either 5 or 10 kW, wired for autostart as batteries require. Size of battery bank is still a work in progress, 48V. I have been recommended about 1300Ah if going with L16’s, for NiFe I am thinking 800-1000.

3) “Higher use in winter” may not be quite accurate, but has some truth. Inside more hours per day, more lighting use, more “entertainment” use (TV/DVD/Computer), circulator pumps running to heat house, small kitchen appliances, etc. Main concern though is shorter solar day, lower intensity means less juice and longer time for “overnight loads” fridge, freezer, etc so that means batteries have to carry more and less charge (both intensity and time).

Bill, I am interested in the Yamaha/Wallyworld battery Idea, and would seriously consider it if we are indeed a few (6-18) months away from a true breakthrough technology. But it would need to come soon. Fridge, freezer, some lights, circulator pumps.By spring of 16 the real deal, long term power system has to be underway. Want to get our 30% discount from the Gov before it expires in 16, and also want to have our infrastructure in place. To answer the question: for us “the survival end of things” is very heavy duty, indeed. I hope it does not come to a point where we can not get (or afford) replacement batteries, but the idea of having a battery bank that will outlive me if I stock replacement electrolyte has MUCH appeal.

Well, that was a bit longer than I hoped, but now the scene is set. Thanks to all for your interest and input. Off to do some homework… after some “work work”.

[Bill Blake]

Larry,

With a nice set-up like that where is A/C and The Sunshine Band? :-)

The size of the Bank you mention seems weak.
The Panels sound nice.

I started off loving NiFe and still love it's potential.
However the more that gets revealed the worse it gets.
Truly sorry about that but if we can 'Pied Piper' the
carbonates, graphite and other evil contaminates out of the
elements of a set of destroyed Changhong cells someday - we will see.

When I gets to a computer it will have to be Links time - next time.

After being an old survival ace for many, many moon old Bill
cares not what generator you raps - but very much cares what the
Hourly fuel consumption is :-)

Something like a 15 Amp / 48 Volt 'slow ride' doesn't take a bulldozer.

I see my man at Yanmar Diesel Generator Land has fuel consumption charts.

Some of the most revealing things old Mike the engineer has said is in the
Wind-Sun forum. Some threads where he really dropped the Nife bomb
were erased without a trace by moderators at a couple of forums.
Best you not talk of Sunking and da gang over at Wind-Sun :-)
Normally erased threads had great info because 'Diamond' John was involved.
Den you had other Lips including you know who having fun as well :-)


Bill Blake

Hi Bill, and Brian, Rob, and Andy (and anyone else who hasn’t chimed in just yet—John D’A?)

Brian-thank you for your words of welcome and for being one of the few who are sharing their experiences with these batteries. It is frustrating that there are so few sources of info from actual users out there and your willingness to take this on is very appreciated. This forum (so far) seems to be free of voices like “Sunking”, and I hope we can all continue to treat the topic like science, as opposed to “us vs them”

Rob-thank you for the kind welcome to the forum. I have come here looking for answers and will probably find more questions, but hopefully we can all move a bit downfield from where we started. I am happy to see that you do Off grid system design in a high latitude. I will value any advice you can give me far more than someone who operates in southern Arizona. We will be above 45 N.

Andy-I understand where you are coming from and what you are saying. My first impression of Old Bill was that he is like talking to Yoda. I also think he may know more about NiFe than just about anyone alive today and he isn’t trying to sell me anything. I have chosen to open my mind and try to “feel the force”. The path may not be short or straight, but it is my hope that we can arrive some logical and concise summary of the state of, and best uses for, NiFe technology. However my main goal is to make the best choice I can for my situation/home power system and I only want to do it once.

John D’Angelo, if you are out there, I hope you will join us again at some point. I will refrain from using Old Bill’s nickname for you from here forward, as we have not developed the unique relationship that you have with him. I am within a reasonable drive from you and would like to see your setup and learn what I can. I will most certainly not be an “easy sale”, but if the product is right for us, my money is good…

Bill, I sincerely thank you for your interest in my situation. I am willing to take this journey with you (we’ll see how far) and am not afraid to look in rabbit holes, sometimes there is a nice, fat rabbit at the bottom. I am hoping to get to the Edison patents you mentioned over the weekend, and I am about to search for the Aqueous Hybrid Ion batteries. I have never heard of this technology, but a few weeks ago that was true for NiFe.

All-I value all advice and input that is given as long as you realize that in the end the choices and consequences are mine. So that you all have an idea of how the plan is shaping up:

1) Off grid home. Logix ICF construction. In floor heat and DHW from wood fired boiler/Solar thermal. Woodstove backup. Well with large storage tanks, gravity feed to house.

2) PV array between 8-10kW, our average solar day is 4.2h. Should have excess capacity in spring, summer and fall, but short winter days and overcast conditions can occur. Seems to me that we need to size for winter to the extent that we can. Would prefer not to be dependent on heavy generator (fuel) use to get through winter. Looking at Military surplus diesel genset either 5 or 10 kW, wired for autostart as batteries require. Size of battery bank is still a work in progress, 48V. I have been recommended about 1300Ah if going with L16’s, for NiFe I am thinking 800-1000.

3) “Higher use in winter” may not be quite accurate, but has some truth. Inside more hours per day, more lighting use, more “entertainment” use (TV/DVD/Computer), circulator pumps running to heat house, small kitchen appliances, etc. Main concern though is shorter solar day, lower intensity means less juice and longer time for “overnight loads” fridge, freezer, etc so that means batteries have to carry more and less charge (both intensity and time).

Bill, I am interested in the Yamaha/Wallyworld battery Idea, and would seriously consider it if we are indeed a few (6-18) months away from a true breakthrough technology. But it would need to come soon. Fridge, freezer, some lights, circulator pumps.By spring of 16 the real deal, long term power system has to be underway. Want to get our 30% discount from the Gov before it expires in 16, and also want to have our infrastructure in place. To answer the question: for us “the survival end of things” is very heavy duty, indeed. I hope it does not come to a point where we can not get (or afford) replacement batteries, but the idea of having a battery bank that will outlive me if I stock replacement electrolyte has MUCH appeal.

Well, that was a bit longer than I hoped, but now the scene is set. Thanks to all for your interest and input. Off to do some homework… after some “work work”.

[Rob Beckers]

Larry, there is actually a well-defined science to properly sizing an off-grid system. It all starts with your expected daily use in kWh, in particular in winter (when a blower motor can add significantly to the total, in case you have forced air heating).

From the daily load in kWh/day and the sun-hour numbers for winter (November and December in particular) follows the PV array size. The kWh/day load also determines the battery bank size; it is normally sized for 3 days of autonomy.

Inverter size follows from a list of your loads, and what is likely to run at the same time. It determines how many Watt the inverter needs to be able to provide at any given time. Note that this is different from daily load; one is power, the other is energy.

If you give me a bit more info (loads or daily energy use), and winter sun-hours for your location, I'll be happy to run the numbers and tell you what it would work out to be in system size.

There are a couple caveats to take note of: Battery size and solar array size are related. Oversizing the batteries (more days of autonomy) without oversizing the PV size will result in insufficient "recharging" power. It will take too long to top up the batteries. Going the other way, too much PV vs. batteries, is less of a problem, though one has to keep maximum charge currents for the batteries in mind.

The other one is that 3 days of autonomy is the norm. This doesn't absolve you from needing a generator though. There will still be times every winter where you'll fall short. It's not economical (if it's even possible) to size for 100% coverage from renewables, almost everyone still needs a genset (and diesel is great!).

-RoB-

[Larry Taylor]

Hi Rob,
Thank you for the reply. I actually have put some pencil work into estimating our winter loads, and am working with a renewables/HVAC designer-contractor who is local to our building location. But if you wouldn’t mind looking over where we are to date, I would appreciate the second opinion/sanity check.

Winter, assuming 10.5 kW array (upper end of our estimate range), estimated 2.5 hr solar day (4.2 annual average) and 0.8 derate factor. Inverter would probably be 1 x 8000W or 2 x 4400's

10.5 x 2.5 x 0.8 = 21 kWh/day max production (assuming my simple formula is correct)

VERY high estimate of winter loads: “going nuts cuz the sun is shining”, ie doing laundry, electric cooktop, vacuum cleaner, dishwasher is 18.7 kWh/d. 21-18.7 = 2.3kWh headspace

Survival/overcast sky mode loads: only using lights, fridge, freezer, circulator pumps, well pump shut off, cook on woodstove, etc., could easily be as low as 5 kWh/d, possibly as low as ~4.

I figure that a 1000 Ah battery bank at 48V and 30% DOD gets us 14.4kWh, so about 3 days, maybe a touch better if the PV is operating at some reasonable level like 15%. In this calculation I left out the derate factor, which may be a mistake. 14.4 x 0.8 = 11.5.

I chose the 1000Ah size because it’s the largest NiFe bank I see available, be it Changhong or Zappworks (and oh my does a 48V Zappworks bank that size cost a bundle). Of course, I was originally thinking NiFe would handle >50% DOD, so I was using 800 Ah and had a longer run of autonomy, but… :sad:

If I go with a different chemistry, the %DOD may tweak a little either way. However, to reiterate, the MAJOR appeal with NiFe was the potential for 30+ yr service life in the event of my future inability to afford or acquire new batteries. Given Bill’s most recent post, I am becoming uncertain of that. A brief look into the 2nd gen Aqueous batteries seems like there is some promise with future development, but it seems that inverter-usable voltage range and charging rates and efficiency may need improvement. Plus there is not much of a track record for the technology… Interested, but do not want to fall for another sales pitch like some of the NiFe sellers provide. :suspicious:

[Bill Blake]

$33,246.72

Dual Battery Banks

48 Volts X 820 Amp Hours each

Dual Battery Banks, Vacuum Packed (plus 8%)

(16) Surrette, Rolls 5000 Model # 6-CS-25PS

(16) Same - Vacuum Packed Cells

All 6 Volt X 820 Ah Cells, 318 pounds each

This assumes the deal is the same as late last year.

Free Delivery.

Your beyond running to Walmart.

You can't (feather) and baby Lead Acid without having
sufficient capacity.

This is the only size dat old Bill knows to be this cost effective.
Plus Redundancy Rules in a TopCat set-up.

If you get them we can talk about how to properly store them.


Bill Blake



Hi Rob,
Thank you for the reply. I actually have put some pencil work into estimating our winter loads, and am working with a renewables/HVAC designer-contractor who is local to our building location. But if you wouldn’t mind looking over where we are to date, I would appreciate the second opinion/sanity check.

Winter, assuming 10.5 kW array (upper end of our estimate range), estimated 2.5 hr solar day (4.2 annual average) and 0.8 derate factor. Inverter would probably be 1 x 8000W or 2 x 4400's

10.5 x 2.5 x 0.8 = 21 kWh/day max production (assuming my simple formula is correct)

VERY high estimate of winter loads: “going nuts cuz the sun is shining”, ie doing laundry, electric cooktop, vacuum cleaner, dishwasher is 18.7 kWh/d. 21-18.7 = 2.3kWh headspace

Survival/overcast sky mode loads: only using lights, fridge, freezer, circulator pumps, well pump shut off, cook on woodstove, etc., could easily be as low as 5 kWh/d, possibly as low as ~4.

I figure that a 1000 Ah battery bank at 48V and 30% DOD gets us 14.4kWh, so about 3 days, maybe a touch better if the PV is operating at some reasonable level like 15%. In this calculation I left out the derate factor, which may be a mistake. 14.4 x 0.8 = 11.5.

I chose the 1000Ah size because it’s the largest NiFe bank I see available, be it Changhong or Zappworks (and oh my does a 48V Zappworks bank that size cost a bundle). Of course, I was originally thinking NiFe would handle >50% DOD, so I was using 800 Ah and had a longer run of autonomy, but… :sad:

If I go with a different chemistry, the %DOD may tweak a little either way. However, to reiterate, the MAJOR appeal with NiFe was the potential for 30+ yr service life in the event of my future inability to afford or acquire new batteries. Given Bill’s most recent post, I am becoming uncertain of that. A brief look into the 2nd gen Aqueous batteries seems like there is some promise with future development, but it seems that inverter-usable voltage range and charging rates and efficiency may need improvement. Plus there is not much of a track record for the technology… Interested, but do not want to fall for another sales pitch like some of the NiFe sellers provide. :suspicious:

[Larry Taylor]

So, I decided to calculate the cost of an electrolyte change for a 48V 1000Ah Changhong NiFe bank. Volumes and electrolyte formulas from Changhong technical manuals/sales literature.

Reagents: best grade available from Fisher Scientific
KOH ACS certified 50 kg drum: ~$35/kg online sale price as of today ~$45/kg reg price
LiOH monohydrate 98%+ 2.5kg pail: $88/kg

40 x NF-1000S cells at 15L electrolyte volume each = 600L (~159 gal) :eek:

600L x 250g KOH/L = 150Kg KOH x $35 = $5250

600L x 20g LiOH/L = 12Kg LiOH x $88 = $1056

Total, assuming distilled water is free, which it isn't even if you make your own, is $6300 per electrolyte change. And mixing up 600L of the stuff is not a small undertaking. If you buy your distilled water at walmart in single gallons at $0.88 each, add another ~$150

If you had to do this 3 times in 30 years (once to set up bank, change at end of years 10 and 20) it could be manageable, but certainly a significant chemical cost and time/effort cost. Every 5 years or so would be a much bigger deal...Every 300 cycles = holy crap! I do think that % DOD and electrolyte use would be related, but to what extent? The fact that even the best grade of KOH has nearly 1% KCO3 is a testament to how much the electrolyte loves to suck up CO2. How much of a problem that actually is, I do not know. It could be that carbonate is just easy to test for, and the actual problem is something else, like iron poisoning...

Also unknown is what grade of chemicals comes with the batteries and what would the electrolyte life be if using these "best grade" chemicals. I assume that when Changhong says 20g/L LiOH, they mean the 56%, so 20 g/L of 98% would be more like 30 g/L (plus less contaminants).

[Andy Rhody]

The other one is that 3 days of autonomy is the norm. This doesn't absolve you from needing a generator though. There will still be times every winter where you'll fall short.
-RoB-

And also, not to be forgotten, Wind! Our little 2000 watt windmill made us 90 KWhs this month. Only makes 5 KWhs in July but sure kicks in in the winter. Where's Chris Olson? He's got that all down pretty well!

[Bill Blake]

If the chemicals are beat-up good you can weigh them and see for
yourself before using them. Many years ago we would weigh a few
bags of QuickLime before accepting delivery to see how much CO2
the 50 pound bags had already sucked up.
After being left in a storage room we weighed dem again to
see when they were full of CO2.
But then again people were not sitting under the dum - dum tree back then.

You should write to Mike the engineer and ask him why he is going
to change his
NiFe Electrolyte at (around) 3 years old after stating over and over and over
how much it scares da man to have to do it after he got burned so bad
doing it the first time.

Mike has the expensive NiFe Electrolyte test kit :-), the devil :-)

Bill Blake



So, I decided to calculate the cost of an electrolyte change for a 48V 1000Ah Changhong NiFe bank. Volumes and electrolyte formulas from Changhong technical manuals/sales literature.

Reagents: best grade available from Fisher Scientific
KOH ACS certified 50 kg drum: ~$35/kg online sale price as of today ~$45/kg reg price
LiOH monohydrate 98%+ 2.5kg pail: $88/kg

40 x NF-1000S cells at 15L electrolyte volume each = 600L (~159 gal) :eek:

600L x 250g KOH/L = 150Kg KOH x $35 = $5250

600L x 20g LiOH/L = 12Kg LiOH x $88 = $1056

Total, assuming distilled water is free, which it isn't even if you make your own, is $6300 per electrolyte change. And mixing up 600L of the stuff is not a small undertaking. If you buy your distilled water at walmart in single gallons at $0.88 each, add another ~$150

If you had to do this 3 times in 30 years (once to set up bank, change at end of years 10 and 20) it could be manageable, but certainly a significant chemical cost and time/effort cost. Every 5 years or so would be a much bigger deal...Every 300 cycles = holy crap! I do think that % DOD and electrolyte use would be related, but to what extent? The fact that even the best grade of KOH has nearly 1% KCO3 is a testament to how much the electrolyte loves to suck up CO2. How much of a problem that actually is, I do not know. It could be that carbonate is just easy to test for, and the actual problem is something else, like iron poisoning...

Also unknown is what grade of chemicals comes with the batteries and what would the electrolyte life be if using these "best grade" chemicals. I assume that when Changhong says 20g/L LiOH, they mean the 56%, so 20 g/L of 98% would be more like 30 g/L (plus less contaminants).

[Rob Beckers]

Hi Rob,
Thank you for the reply. I actually have put some pencil work into estimating our winter loads, and am working with a renewables/HVAC designer-contractor who is local to our building location. But if you wouldn’t mind looking over where we are to date, I would appreciate the second opinion/sanity check.

Winter, assuming 10.5 kW array (upper end of our estimate range), estimated 2.5 hr solar day (4.2 annual average) and 0.8 derate factor. Inverter would probably be 1 x 8000W or 2 x 4400's

10.5 x 2.5 x 0.8 = 21 kWh/day max production (assuming my simple formula is correct)

VERY high estimate of winter loads: “going nuts cuz the sun is shining”, ie doing laundry, electric cooktop, vacuum cleaner, dishwasher is 18.7 kWh/d. 21-18.7 = 2.3kWh headspace

Survival/overcast sky mode loads: only using lights, fridge, freezer, circulator pumps, well pump shut off, cook on woodstove, etc., could easily be as low as 5 kWh/d, possibly as low as ~4.

I figure that a 1000 Ah battery bank at 48V and 30% DOD gets us 14.4kWh, so about 3 days, maybe a touch better if the PV is operating at some reasonable level like 15%. In this calculation I left out the derate factor, which may be a mistake. 14.4 x 0.8 = 11.5.

I chose the 1000Ah size because it’s the largest NiFe bank I see available, be it Changhong or Zappworks (and oh my does a 48V Zappworks bank that size cost a bundle). Of course, I was originally thinking NiFe would handle >50% DOD, so I was using 800 Ah and had a longer run of autonomy, but… :sad:

If I go with a different chemistry, the %DOD may tweak a little either way. However, to reiterate, the MAJOR appeal with NiFe was the potential for 30+ yr service life in the event of my future inability to afford or acquire new batteries. Given Bill’s most recent post, I am becoming uncertain of that. A brief look into the 2nd gen Aqueous batteries seems like there is some promise with future development, but it seems that inverter-usable voltage range and charging rates and efficiency may need improvement. Plus there is not much of a track record for the technology… Interested, but do not want to fall for another sales pitch like some of the NiFe sellers provide. :suspicious:

Hi Larry,

Got busy here, sorry, just now getting back to your info.

Your winter sun-hours (2.5h, I assume that's December, I also assume this take the tilt-angle of the panels into account?) are very similar to what we have over here. Your derate factor is wildly optimistic though. At 0.8 it would do better than a grid-tie PV installation, which uses 97% efficient inverters!

For MPPT charge controllers I use an overall derate (panel to energy into the batteries) of 0.77. Charging the batteries adds in a 0.8 derate, and the efficiency of the average off-grid inverter at a variety of loads is about 0.85. That makes an overall derate factor of 0.77 x 0.8 x 0.85 = 0.53x

I know what you're thinking at this point, and I could write a long story why 0.8 is not anywhere near reality, for now let's say that 0.53 has shown to be pretty close though somewhat on the pessimistic side. We have to oversize at least a little; customers always have more loads than they tell us, more shading in winter than anticipated, and running a small surplus is OK while continuously having a deficit, even a small one, is absolutely not acceptable.

So that makes 10.5 x 2.5 x 0.53 = 13.9 kWh/day out of a 10.5kW PV array in winter. We actually oversize (or derate if you're calculating the other way) the PV array by 1.1x, to account for aging and other things, on top of that derate above. So, that 13.9 kWh number is OK, but running on the edge if you really plan on using that much.

These numbers take battery efficiency into account, for lead-acid. My understanding is that NiFe is a little bit less efficient (in part due to higher self-discharge).

I don't know how far you can safely discharge NiFe, for lead-acid we use 50% DOD for sizing (meaning 50% DOD on a regular basis, with 80% DOD acceptable occasionally). We normally size for 3 days autonomy. So, a 1000 Ah @ 48V battery bank stores 1000 x 48 = 48 kWh. Figuring in 50% DOD means 24 kWh available, and 3 days means 8 kWh available per average day.

Hope this helps!

-RoB-

[Rob Beckers]

To add a little to my previous post; if we were to do the exercise the other way around and base things on the mid-point between 5 and 18.7 kWh/day, somewhere around 12 kWh/day:

Working from a 0.53x derate factor we get a solar array size of

12 / (2.5 x 0.53) = 9 kW of solar PV (or 10 kW if I was doing the job)

For the full 18.7 kWh/day you'd need a lot more

18.7 / (2.5 x 0.53) = 14 kW of solar PV (or 15.5 kW with a safety factor)

On the battery side it would take

12 x 2 x 3 / 48 = 1,500 Ah @ 48V for 12 kWh/day (in lead-acid)

Or

18.7 * 2 * 3 / 48 = 2,335 Ah @ 48V for 18.7 kWh/day (and that is one honking big bank!)

Keep in mind that the solar PV calculations are for 2.5 sun-hours in mid-winter, and that comes at a certain tilt-angle, and assumes the panels stay free of snow (and no shading from 10am - 2pm minimum in the dead of winter). We usually put them on adjustable ground mounts, so they can be tilted up to 60 degrees for winter, 30 degrees for summer.

Array and in particular the battery bank can be made smaller if you're willing to run the generator more often. Even if you were to build according to the numbers above you would still have a run the generator a number of times in winter; there's always a few periods with too little sun for too long (and Andy is right, a wind turbine can help out quite a bit there, but they come with their own set of issues).

-RoB-

[Larry Taylor]

Hi Rob,
thank you for the calculations, they are very helpful. I've gotten caught up in the day to day a bit the last few days, but these numbers are very helpful for our planning and system design. I'm afraid I have Hijacked Brian's NiFe thread a bit, but I really appreciate the insight from you and Ol' Bill.

Crunching the numbers on the NiFe electrolyte change was really the final straw for me. If you really could beat the crap out of them with 70-80% DOD for 30 years and only change the electrolyte twice, I would be in. But the possibility of having to do that every 3 to 5 years is just too much. The cost of the chemicals is significant, but having to make 600 L of the juice (and neutralize/dispose of the old) is a HUGE deal. That's an awful lot of hot, caustic solution. :eek::eek:

So, I think it will have to be Rolls 5000's with the bank sized for ~30-40% DOD in winter. Running the fridge and freezer overnight the rest of the year will barely even register.

Thanks again to you all for your interest and input.

[Bill Blake]

If your going to compare prices it seems the KOH at Duda Diesel
in the sealed pails is good enough. The Ni-Fi Cells are making their own
Electrolyte
contaminates by slowly melting away part of their own Elements
so everything being ultra clean seems to not mean much.

The cheap grade of LiOH they use seems to be the big problem.
It's 9 cents per gram for the 99+ % LiOH in sealed containers.

Perhaps you can restore some old Changhong Ni-Fi Cells
sold as scrap
just for the fun of it someday.

Mr. Edison left instructions for non-metal 'cans' (cases)
and rejuvination.

Changhong claims (in writing) that their plastic should be able
to handle the heat of a restoration job.

Another Internet First here at Green Power Talk :-)
Do you feel Lucky :-)

Bill Blake



Hi Rob,
thank you for the calculations, they are very helpful. I've gotten caught up in the day to day a bit the last few days, but these numbers are very helpful for our planning and system design. I'm afraid I have Hijacked Brian's NiFe thread a bit, but I really appreciate the insight from you and Ol' Bill.

Crunching the numbers on the NiFe electrolyte change was really the final straw for me. If you really could beat the crap out of them with 70-80% DOD for 30 years and only change the electrolyte twice, I would be in. But the possibility of having to do that every 3 to 5 years is just too much. The cost of the chemicals is significant, but having to make 600 L of the juice (and neutralize/dispose of the old) is a HUGE deal. That's an awful lot of hot, caustic solution. :eek::eek:

So, I think it will have to be Rolls 5000's with the bank sized for ~30-40% DOD in winter. Running the fridge and freezer overnight the rest of the year will barely even register.

Thanks again to you all for your interest and input.

[Brian McGowan]

My battery monitor came in and I installed it tonight. Here are a few pictures.

0143 is the before picture of my current shunt arrangement.

0145 is the after picture with the battery monitor shunt in the system. I was hoping to find some buss bar but I was not successful so I used 2 clamp on ends and a piece of AWG2 wire. I can change it later if I get a piece. It needs to be 3/8" by 1" to handle the current. I tied the positive lead from the shunt to the top right hand fuse screw shown to the left of the shunt in picture 0143. I don't know how important it is to get that lead right on the battery but at the moment it is 2 250A fuses and a 3 foot piece of wire away from the battery terminal. I would rather just tie it to the fuse block directly to the left of the meter bracket shown in the next picture.

0146 is a view of the entire scene. Note the excess wire. I am going to have to shorten that by about 95%. I noted the wire pinout and can make a very short cable that will do the job.

0147 is the meter itself.

I still have to figure out how to set it up but at least the work is done.

Brian

[Brian McGowan]

Since these batteries charge at a much higher voltage than FLAs and my inverter likes to shut down at 15 volts I am considering another inverter. My current inverter is 2.5kW/5kW. I am considering this one.
http://www.theinverterstore.com/2000-watt-pure-sine-inverter-charger.html
or this one but I am leaning towards the first one.
http://www.theinverterstore.com/4000-watt-12-volt-pure-sine-inverter-charger.html

I don't really need the charger but I can't seem to find one without it when I get to this class of inverter. I was considering a Magnum ME2812 (I think that's the pure sine one) but they are way too expensive.

Any thoughts or opinions would be appreciated.

Brian

[Bill Blake]

Brian,

How many Volts are your NiFe Cells getting up to after a good charge
right now?

The Inverter that you Like.

Doesn't the Amps / Watts draw just idling seem a tad high ?
What percentage of your winter solar power gets sucked up by the badboy
in a few days - doing nothing ?

Bill Blake


Since these batteries charge at a much higher voltage than FLAs and my inverter likes to shut down at 15 volts I am considering another inverter. My current inverter is 2.5kW/5kW. I am considering this one.
http://www.theinverterstore.com/2000-watt-pure-sine-inverter-charger.html
or this one but I am leaning towards the first one.
http://www.theinverterstore.com/4000-wa chargett-12-volt-pure-sine-inverter-charger.html

I don't really need the charger but I can't seem to find one without it when I get to this class of inverter. I was considering a Magnum ME2812 (I think that's the pure sine one) but they are way too expensive.

Any thoughts or opinions would be appreciated.

Brian

[Brian McGowan]

For starters I am not off grid and will not have this idling constantly. I turn it on when I need it or have power available to use in place of grid power with the object being to use as much of this power around the house as possible in place of grid power. I hope to make a control box to automate low voltage disconnect and dump loading and will also turn the inverter on anytime I have power to use to run household appliances. Probably going to turn on at 16.5V if it will handle it and off at 15V. It should run for hours every day.
The current problem is I am over 15V before I know it and cannot turn on the inverter to use the power. With a shut off of 16 volts I am in a better position.
Currently I have the charge controller set at 16.5V absorb voltage and I think 15.8V float. I have come home from work to find it has absorbed for 2 hours and floated for more than 3. When I can actually use the power I have had 5.4kWh harvested out of 1050 watts of panels.
Current inverter uses 1.5A at idle with no load. Shuts down at 15 volts on the nose with no exception.
Magnum MS2820 inverter claims at least 2A no load with a “search mode” almost 0.6A. Shuts down at 17 volts. Has pretty good surge characteristics in several ranges and times. Haven’t found one for less than $1700.00 yet except for a reman for about $1400.00.
Aims 2Kw inverter claims less than 3A no load with a “power saver mode” less than 2A. High voltage alarm at 16 volts. Don’t know if that means shutdown or not but have asked. Claims to handle a surge 3 times it’s rating for 20 seconds. $588.00
I haven’t decided yet and am still researching and have questions in but I need to do something. Happy to entertain any suggestions.
Brian

[Brian McGowan]

This is another possibility and has a higher input voltage and a lower idle current.

http://www.theinverterstore.com/2000-watt-pure-sine-inverter.html

[Bill Blake]

If your there to tend to things and throw switches when you
want to make something happen - have you considered a
Hybrid Battery System using DC to DC Charging Technology ?

Why not play into the strong side of your investment - take care of
Changhong and get some serious years out of them.

Also consider 'The Higher Powers' in 12 to 24 Volt Land.
The RV and Boat Boys.
Where you can expand your horizons.

Also, old Bill likes Aims and have used their stuff with no complaints.

Bill Blake

[Bill Blake]

For starters I am not off grid and will not have this idling constantly. I turn it on when I need it or have power available to use in place of grid power with the object being to use as much of this power around the house as possible in place of grid power. I hope to make a control box to automate low voltage disconnect and dump loading and will also turn the inverter on anytime I have power to use to run household appliances. Probably going to turn on at 16.5V if it will handle it and off at 15V. It should run for hours every day.
The current problem is I am over 15V before I know it and cannot turn on the inverter to use the power. With a shut off of 16 volts I am in a better position.
Currently I have the charge controller set at 16.5V absorb voltage and I think 15.8V float. I have come home from work to find it has absorbed for 2 hours and floated for more than 3. When I can actually use the power I have had 5.4kWh harvested out of 1050 watts of panels.
Current inverter uses 1.5A at idle with no load. Shuts down at 15 volts on the nose with no exception.
Magnum MS2820 inverter claims at least 2A no load with a “search mode” almost 0.6A. Shuts down at 17 volts. Has pretty good surge characteristics in several ranges and times. Haven’t found one for less than $1700.00 yet except for a reman for about $1400.00.
Aims 2Kw inverter claims less than 3A no load with a “power saver mode” less than 2A. High voltage alarm at 16 volts. Don’t know if that means shutdown or not but have asked. Claims to handle a surge 3 times it’s rating for 20 seconds. $588.00
I haven’t decided yet and am still researching and have questions in but I need to do something. Happy to entertain any suggestions.
Brian

I don't see where you have to do a thing other than explore the possibilities
right now. If you don't change that electrolyte Religiously how many cycles
at 50% (or so) discharge do you expect - I asks.

So if you run dem into the ground you may save 40 cents (or so) per cycle
in electric bill.
Each cycle, even without electrolyte and water costs, will probably run you
5 times (or so) as much
and when you may REALLY NEED Changhong and The Electric Indian
he may be wore out and / or not available.
Yes it's a hobby and all that.

When time permits I will share with you some of what I heard from one of the
Kings of Boat Electric along wid a few other humble thoughts.

Europe also has some nice DC do-dads. :-)

Bill Blake

[Brian McGowan]

Well I am clearly not running them into the ground. This from my shiny new battery monitor:

-.1kAh The deepest discharge in Ah.
-.1kAh The largest value recorded for Ah consumed since the last synchronization.
0Ah Average discharge depth
0 the number of charge cycles. A charge cycle is counted every time the state- of charge drops below 65 %, then rises above 90 %
0 The number of full discharges. A full discharge is counted when the state- of charge reaches 0 %.
-1.4 kAh The cumulative number of Amp hours drawn from the battery.
12.8V The lowest battery voltage.
16.6V The highest battery voltage.
2.08 The number of days since the last full charge.
2 The number of automatic synchronizations
0 The number of low voltage alarms.
0 The number of high voltage alarms.
18.5kWh The total amount of energy drawn from the battery in (k)Wh
33.7kWh The total amount of energy absorbed by the battery in (k)Wh

My problem is not keeping them charged or discharging them too much or too often. My problem is using the power the charge controller would be making if it was not choking down the panels because the battery is already charged.

Brian

[Bill Blake]

Go to 'His Eminence'

www.giantbattery.com

Go to FAQ

Behold: "Opportunity Charging".

How about Changhong ?

How many days did it take to use the 18.5 K dub ??


old Bill



Well I am clearly not running them into the ground. This from my shiny new battery monitor:

-.1kAh The deepest discharge in Ah.
-.1kAh The largest value recorded for Ah consumed since the last synchronization.
0Ah Average discharge depth
0 the number of charge cycles. A charge cycle is counted every time the state- of charge drops below 65 %, then rises above 90 %
0 The number of full discharges. A full discharge is counted when the state- of charge reaches 0 %.
-1.4 kAh The cumulative number of Amp hours drawn from the battery.
12.8V The lowest battery voltage.
16.6V The highest battery voltage.
2.08 The number of days since the last full charge.
2 The number of automatic synchronizations
0 The number of low voltage alarms.
0 The number of high voltage alarms.
18.5kWh The total amount of energy drawn from the battery in (k)Wh
33.7kWh The total amount of energy absorbed by the battery in (k)Wh

My problem is not keeping them charged or discharging them too much or too often. My problem is using the power the charge controller would be making if it was not choking down the panels because the battery is already charged.

Brian

[Brian McGowan]

Best I can figure that is 17 days. The dates on the battery monitor pictures on my earlier post are the starting point. During that same period according to my charge controller I harvested a total of 50.7kWh and on some of those better days there was time spent absorbing and floating. I also have certain fairly regular loads and use other power when I can.
That harvesting happened in the following order starting from today and moving backwards to the day I installed the monitor.
Today 4.2kWh
Yesterday .7
5.0
5.4
4.8
.9
.5
.5
1.7
4.2
4.2
4.9
.8
4.9
1.3
2.4
4.3
Went to the website you mentioned. Don’t see how that relates to this at all. Those are FLAs and I am not “opportunity charging”.
As to how Changhong is going to hold up I say again as I have always said, I am going to find out. Somebody has to replace fiction with fact.
Brian

[Bill Blake]

Talk to Changhong.
After several Decades with NiFe Cells on every Continent on earth
they can give you all the fact you can handle.

Talk to 'Diamond' John. Like some others he know way more
than he tell. The devil :-)

Around here your talking around 3 dollars worth of electric per month
for what your doing.
A dime a day.

Seems almost like Lunch-time opportunity charging to be wearing
Changhong out and contaminating those positive electrodes
for the flip of a dime.

How many grand $
How many cycles ?
Do the math.

Just hope you don't have to flip 2 or 3 bucks (or more)
back for each dime.

Bill Blake

Bill Blake

[Brian McGowan]

I don’t need to talk to Changhong. If I can’t use these batteries the way I used FLAs then I will find out. If they won’t hold up as well as FLAs I will find out. As far as I can tell up to this point they are doing better than the FLAs I have had.

If you know something you should just spill it. Although, I already own the batteries and the test is well underway. One cycle per day or less depending on what mother nature dishes out.

There are claims that too great a DOD will kill batteries of all types and too little a DOD will do the same. So far I am less than 20%DOD average per day. In theory, according to your words this should be well within the ability of this battery to last a long time.

I’m sure if John has something to say he will chime in here. Now he has some data to comment on.

Hope doesn’t get you anywhere. Testing does and that’s what I’m doing. As far as I can tell I’m doing more than others are doing.

Brian

[Bill Blake]

Like you said let's just see what happens.
Changhong actually said plenty in their new
2014 Operators Manual on their website.
It's no secret.
Mike the engineer said enough to know his NiFe batteries
may already be in big trouble.
It's your nickel.

[Brian McGowan]

Perhaps you could convince Mike to come over here and talk a little about his experience.

No one has said anything at that other forum since end of February.

I kind of need to get back to the inverter issue. I need to get a new inverter.

Brian

[Bill Blake]

Yes, the silence is deafening.

No, I believe da thrill is now Gone for ole Mike.
It's just hard reality and more NiFe work and expense at this point.
Mike (the engineer) did say plenty over at the windsun forum
as well as at solarpaneltalk at one time.
Haven't been at windsun lately.

NiFe Land seems to be heading more and more towards
'Every dog for hisself' Land.

Your Inverter boils down to whether you needs dat 6,000 Watts
for 20 seconds or not.

That Aims unit is a rare bird - indeedie.
Look at the huge weight of it compared to the competition.

Other than that big surge there may be a better option.
Would a 16.5 Volt shut down make much of a difference to you ?
Plus 1/2 the idle draw.

Wonder what phase just the very slight draw of a 110 Volt timer
would kick your inverter into to operate ?

Bill Blake


Perhaps you could convince Mike to come over here and talk a little about his experience.

No one has said anything at that other forum since end of February.

I kind of need to get back to the inverter issue. I need to get a new inverter.

Brian

[Brian McGowan]

I don't really need the 6000 watts but my choice so seems to have been or twice the power for 1/2 second and I'm not sure if that will be long enough to kick the fridge and my compressor over. Nothing else I run really needs that.

Idle current doesn't really matter that much because I only turn it on when I am going to use it.

16.5V is better than the 15V I am dealing with now.

That last inverter I listed actually has a 17V shutdown and an alarm that starts at 16V. I could put up with the noise since it lives out in the garage if it would allow me to automate turning it on when the battery is fully charged and use the power the panels make for the rest of the day.

Brian

[Bill Blake]

Brian,

What kind of Voltage are you getting from the wind turbine
when you get some wind?
Have you spoken about how it's being fed or regulated into the
NiFe batteries.
Does this affect your hook-up for an inverter at all.

Early next week I will ask around a bit.
Samlex had an interesting 2000 watt unit.
The last generation but may still be available.

A cheap meter can determine how much surge you actually need.

Bill Blake

[Brian McGowan]

Yeah that stupid little wind turbine will definitely kick in when it's windy. I have seen it draw 40 amps when it's really windy. I can definitely push the voltage over the high voltage trip point for my inverter. It was much worse when I was running FLAs.

Even so, I am considering getting a 24V head for it instead of the 12 volt head I have now because of the higher charging voltage of the battery and to take advantage of lower wind speed.

Currently the turbine goes through a diode on my board so the lines in the yard out to the turbine are not charged and then through a fuse to the join point for the battery before it goes through the battery fuse. Now that I have the battery monitor shunt in there I can actually tell how much current is being fed into the battery as opposed to the inverters or other loads. That is proving to confirm my thoughts.

Somewhere I have a schematic of my system but I need to add the current shunt to the battery for the battery monitor.

I have meters but at this point they are all digital so they sample and I don't have an analog meter that can handle that kind of current. I never trust them to sample at the exact nanosecond when the highest current draw occurs. I miss analog meters. I was able to watch the current draw profile much better with those.

I have heard of Samlex

Brian

[Bill Blake]

Brian,

Will your Amp Hour Meter tell you how much battery power your present Inverter
is using just hooked up with no Loads?

Or do you need an inexpensive 'Watts Up Meter' to become a true test man :-)

It would be nice to see how much power you draw with only a 110 Volt Timer
running. Anything capable of turning a 12 Volt Battery Charger on and off
when you want it to be on or off.

Call it around 600 Watts or so that this timer would have to handle.
In the high 80's as far as charger efficiency goes.
Same as a top quality Inverter.

You would also need a relay set-up to transfer power DC to DC until your
NiFe Voltage dropped low enough for your Inverter to handle it.
That would be at extremely high efficiency with the proper cables and
should not take Long.

The problems you had wearing LA Batteries out before should go away
with a good and proper 'Slave Bank' to pamper and baby the badboys now.
You may experience great flexibility with great resources and Less hassle.

It would be nice if you had a 12 Volt Lead Acid Battery or two and a
vented battery box to try it out and see.

The Inverter you have now may be just fine. Bucks put into greater battery
capacity may be a better investment.

I measure a Survival System by how Long it could heat or cool a room
in a pinch if all other fuels were exhausted.

For instance how Long could you run even a little 900 Watt heater?

Is it time for the next generation that Larry was wondering about?

Bill Blake

[Bill Blake]

P.S. Using your present Inverter is just for a test.
That Inverter would go to the Lead Acid side where it belongs.
Something like a cheaper, Leaner 1000 watt unit would handle the
battery charger.

Yes there are 12 Volt Timers and DC Battery to Battery Chargers but
I never came across one that was 'right'.
Other than the Direct Link, DC to DC normally has higher losses as well
as Less precision.

Someday a DC Timer tripping your
DC to DC Relay on and off would be nice.
Or Voltage based controls as you refine the system.

It's all done with time in the primitive starter model.
Same as our original machines filled Mulch Bags by time.

Done properly time can be a nice Fail-safe.
As can sizing the 2 banks properly.
There are reasons behind all this but I'm not trying to write a book today. :-)

Bill Blake

[Bill Blake]

The original idea for this set-up was never to mention it again until
Generator Fuel hits 6 or more dollars a gallon someday because of trouble.
Like the Middle East or The South China Sea.
In this case you have a couple of unique problems so I said what the heck.
I never know how much longer I'll be around.

Full Boat, the Lead Acid Bank is at least twice the size of the Slave Bank.
The LA Bank is the Main Bank. It has it's own Solar Charging set-up but
if your REALLY using the power for real the universal problem is
not enough charging time, sulfation and what have you.
Since the Slave Bank doesn't sulfate filling it up every day doesn't matter.
We may only need its boost for extra charging hours and extra capacity
2 or 3 times per week. May need to run it down a good bit during hard times but
it does not have to be discharged every day unless you want to.
So it should balance out.

Yes we lose efficiency with the cool and slow power transfer between banks.

How much Solar Panel power or Generator Fuel gets thrown away the last
10 to 15 percent (or so) trying to 'Finish Charge' your main bank ??

The Nickel Iron Cells can be kept in the 'arms wide open zone' as far as
Charge RECEPTION which has been the big overlooked quality
of NiFe. It no Lie :-)

Sandia National Labs can tell you the sorry tale about Charge Reception.

This marriage, HYBRID, makes for great economics in the long run.
The 2 partners greatly extend each others Lifespan and Efficiency.
They become like the Legendary Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.

The Slave Bank can be most anything that doesn't sulfate.
Old Bill has had his eye on AHI lately. It no Lie. :-)

During good times its all he he he. Rediculous.

During bad times its the price of meat has just gone up and
your ability to stay comfy has just gone down.
In a hurry.

Bill Blake

P.S. Using your present Inverter is just for a test.
That Inverter would go to the Lead Acid side where it belongs.
Something like a cheaper, Leaner 1000 watt unit would handle the
battery charger.

Yes there are 12 Volt Timers and DC Battery to Battery Chargers but
I never came across one that was 'right'.
Other than the Direct Link, DC to DC normally has higher losses as well
as Less precision.

Someday a DC Timer tripping your
DC to DC Relay on and off would be nice.
Or Voltage based controls as you refine the system.

It's all done with time in the primitive starter model.
Same as our original machines filled Mulch Bags by time.

Done properly time can be a nice Fail-safe.
As can sizing the 2 banks properly.
There are reasons behind all this but I'm not trying to write a book today. :-)

Bill Blake

[Brian McGowan]

I have limited time at this moment so I will only reply to the first post.

First as you can see in the pictures in my post #99, there are now 4 total current shunts since I added the one for the battery monitor. So there is the battery monitor shunt, the shunt to the left that goes to the inverters, the shunt that goes straight up which is attached to anything that can provide charging, and the shunt to the right which goes to all the DC loads. I have a pretty good idea where my power is going or I can find out pretty easily.

I know my inverter takes 1.5A at idle and I have a very good idea how much it draws when operating various appliances around the house.

I have one of those timers and according to my kill-a-watt meter it does not draw anything in 24 hours so it must be pretty small. Possibly not even enough to wake up an inverter that can sleep, and I have helped design inverters that can sleep until contact is closed on the AC output. I am not sure if I am at liberty to say how that works. Anyway the timer I have will switch 1750W.

I do have a pair of 12V deep cycle 125Ah (I think) batteries. I charge them once in a while but I don't know their actual condition.
No venting is required as this all lives in the garage which is only better than being exposed to space in that nothing in there will get directly rained on and wind is substantially reduced. Otherwise there is no insulation and it leaks like a sieve. One of the reasons FLAs don't do well there and another option was needed.

Lastly, I definitely want a new inverter for a variety of reasons. On big one is that I want to be able to turn it on no matter the state of charge of the battery even if it is absorbing.
The next big reason is that I have had it apart to fix it 3 times since I got it several years ago. Now it is making noise on the positive going quadrant of the waveform which makes noise on my TV screen and I just don't feel like taking it apart again to fix that and then wait for the next thing to go wrong. Maybe I will use it for loads that can handle dirty power like the compressor or weed wacker or hedge trimmers or something.

That is all I have time for now.
Brian

[Bill Blake]

Well then it sounds like 16, 16.5 or 17 Volts.
A Lot of surge power or way Less.
A short warranty or a Longer warranty.
This, staying with the econo pure sine models.

Unless the wind genny kicks in real good.

They claim you NEVER mix NiFe and Lead Acid fumes whether
anyone is around or not.

There are a Lot of options. For instance the Slave Bank can have minimal
Solar Panels to keep costs down with a multi-day cycle.
Or Lots of panels for a lot of production and

Time Shifting the Sunlight
most every day.

Removing the Blivet.

The stopping of trying to fit 10 pounds of poop
into a 5 pound bag. :-)

Gather the 'shine' during the day but feed the
Main Bank only when needed - later.

Give it 5 years to sink in.
Nobody's selling anything.
At least not in dis field.

Bill Blake

[Brian McGowan]

OK even as fast as I tried to use power today, the system still spent 2 hours absorbing and 2.5 hours floating. That is wasted power as the charge controller choked down the panels. I need to use this power and the best way is to turn on an inverter and provide power to appliances.

I think I am down to a samlex best price I can find is $600.
Eff 85% and no load <1A
http://www.samlexamerica.com/products/ProductDetail.aspx?pid=505

or this one which I am heavily leaning towards. best price so far $699
Eff 90% full load and 95% 1/3 load
http://www.theinverterstore.com/3000-watt-pure-sine-inverter.html#

I don't need what the aims inverter will do. I am thinking about the 2nd inverter here also because at 3000 watts hopefully I won't get into the surge too often.

Thoughts?
Brian

[Brian McGowan]

OK I got this one. Hopefully it will be here by the weekend.

http://www.theinverterstore.com/3000-watt-pure-sine-inverter.html

[Brian McGowan]

New inverter is installed. I will keep you posted about the results.

[Brian McGowan]

Living without grid power after a powerful storm took out the grid in the region. New inverter doing very well. Watched a movie and running the fridge. Picture was crystal clear.
Brian

[Brian McGowan]

Power is back on. 43 hours on battery and the new inverter ran flawlessly the entire 43 hours. Was able to keep the fridge running the entire time and watch movies and some tv both nights. Charge voltage got up to 16.3 volts both days so the old inverter would have shut down at 15 and left me without the fridge running. I have to go out and see what my deepest discharge was for that period.
I did find that the GFI outlet was very sensitive. I would plug something in and it would trip the GFI. I will have to wire an outlet to the terminal block and that should solve the problem.
Brian

[Brian McGowan]

Battery stats now.

-.2kAh The deepest discharge in Ah.
-.2kAh The largest value recorded for Ah consumed since the last synchronization.
-.2Ah Average discharge depth
4 the number of charge cycles. A charge cycle is counted every time the state- of charge drops below 65 %, then rises above 90 %
0 The number of full discharges. A full discharge is counted when the state- of charge reaches 0 %.
-6.6 kAh The cumulative number of Amp hours drawn from the battery.
12.1V The lowest battery voltage.
16.7V The highest battery voltage.
3.34 The number of days since the last full charge.
5 The number of automatic synchronizations
0 The number of low voltage alarms.
0 The number of high voltage alarms.
85.1kWh The total amount of energy drawn from the battery in (k)Wh
207kWh The total amount of energy absorbed by the battery in (k)Wh

[Rob Beckers]

Brian, what are you using to monitor the battery?

[Brian McGowan]

I am using the BVM700 that John DiAngelo sold me.
Brand begins with a V but I can't remember it righ now. If you search on battery monitor and that number you should find it.

[Brian McGowan]

Victron is the maker of that monitor.

[Brian McGowan]

Ordered a 24 volt alternator to replace the 12 volt alternator on my wind turbine and installed it today and did some maintenance while it was down. Clean and grease basically. First time it's been touched in more than 6 years since I put it up. As I have said before, it may not be pretty but it is what I call the "sledgehammer" of wind turbines. I just can't imagine what could possibly kill this thing. If I didn't need a higher charging voltage for the batteries I wouldn't have touched it yet.

[Rob Beckers]

Brian, I've been looking for recommendations of a small wind turbine that doesn't break in the first few years. What do you have?

-RoB-

[Brian McGowan]

It is a unit from this place which I got on Ebay.

http://hydrogenappliances.com/

It is as dead simple as it gets. It is a GM alternator with the electromagnet rotor removed and a high power neodymium/iron boron magnet core installed instead and blades slapped on the front.
Usually only 3 things can go wrong with an alternator. Bearings can fail, rectifier can fail or brushes can fail which is usually what you end up replacing these alternators for. I have never replaced an alternator for anything else and I buy cars with more than 100K miles on them and have not run one of these cars for less than 100K more miles. I have only ever replaced one in all the cars I have owned and that was for brushes.
Since there is a permanent magnet core there are not brushes so that failure point is gone. You can get a "3 phase" version which simply has the rectifier removed and you wire straight to the coils. You can then place the rectifier down where your charge controller and battery equipment is located so if it fails you just walk over and replace it. That leaves only the bearings on top of the pole to fail and I have never seen them fail in a car where they will likely turn millions of times more than they ever will as a wind turbine. GM alternators operate in blistering heat, bone chilling cold, wet, dry, dust, dirt and anything else you can think of.
The main disadvantage is it is small. If you need more power you will have to put up more than one. The 12V version I have will put out 65 amps in a 35 MPH wind. I basically figure it is a 1 horse power output. No matter how you shift the numbers that is what it comes out to. twice the voltage, half the current as the wire has to be thinner to fit enough of it to make 24 volts in the same space.

You can call it a toy as the guy in one other forum has done but it is dead simple and rock solid. My motto in engineering is KISS. That applies here. Just add as many as you need. If I could stand to live in an area where there are 35 MPH winds 24/7 this unit would supply all the power I need every day in only 17 hours of running time per day all by itself.

Brian

[Brian McGowan]

OK my relays and pulleys are here including a 20 amp relay for the refrigerator. Time to make some more automatic AC switching outlet boxes so I can use my inverter to full effect. Also rebuild my DC generator so I can keep my batteries up during long power outages.

Brian

[Jeff Parker]

Hi Brian,

Brand new here. I am strongly considering NiFe as a battery technology for off grid.

This thread is by far the richest forum-type information source I have found on this shall we say controversial :amuse: technology -- and you are the most prolific poster to the thread, as well as the one with the most hands-on experience. So, thanks already -- I have learned a lot.

Do you have any updates to share on your NiFe adventure?

Thanks
Jeff

[Brian McGowan]

Hi Jeff,
Glad you are enjoying the thread.

I have no new information to offer at this moment except I am still happy with my batteries. They consume a fair amount of water but I am going to build a solar still so that won’t be such a problem anymore. Even so, distilled water is a buck a gallon.

They survived another winter of not getting fully charged for long periods of time without any ill effects as far as I can tell.
I have worked them pretty hard. I am using them as I can imagine they would be used if I were off grid.

I do have to get on taking another set of specific gravity readings but I have been busy.
Currently I am working on a load controller so I can be using more of the power my panels put out

I am interested to know what other forums you have checked in on in your search for information about these batteries and what others are saying about them.

Stay tuned. More is coming.
Brian

[Jeff Parker]

Brian, can you ballpark some measure of how much water your battery uses? "% per week" or "gallons per cell-week" or something?

I just looked into DI water as a possible substitute for distilled, but DI and distilled may not be equivalent in this application. One source said that DI water was OK for batteries, but then said that it's corrosive and therefore not suitable in constant contact with metal (which of course battery electrolyte *is*). But if it was suitable, ion-exchange-resin DI would seem to be a decent battery watering strategy.

As far as forums, I have visited pretty much all the ones you mentioned on this thread and a few others (Northern AZ Wind and Sun, Endless Sphere (EV), solarpaneltalk, wherever googling took me. I didn't post or even lurk -- just research. This is the first of them that seemed worth signing on.

Thanks, Jeff

[Brian McGowan]

Jeff,
Best ballpark I could come up with is maybe 12-16 gallons/year for my 500Ah pack.

No you must use distilled water only. DI water is not the same and will still have contaminants in it. It just won’t be ionized. That is why I want to build the solar still. Even if you buy water. $12-16/year is not that much and if you build the solar still it is free.

I am glad you like this forum. I have found this forum to be the most worthwhile also where there is actual discussion.

Brian

[Jeff Parker]

Brian, from your other posts I'm guessing you have a 10-cell (nominal 12V) battery. So for a 48V battery we could be talking 4x16=64 gallons of makeup distilled water per year. That's a lot, but not an outrageous amount. 100 gallons would be two jugs a week from the local big box grocery. I can appreciate the motivation for running an on-site still though.

Roger on the DI vs distilled H2O question, and thanks.

Did you go with Iron Edison or BUF? Or ??? On what basis did you make the buying decision? My take from my own research is that both are reputable dealers selling essentially the same Changhong cells. BUF is a little cheaper, but Iron Edison is a little more of an "off the shelf" storefront vs. BUF's "send us ten kilobucks and wait til we call you". BTW if you don't want to open a can of worms by commenting on this question here I understand completely. Feel free to private message in that case, or "no comment".

Thanks, Jeff

[Brian McGowan]

Jeff,

Yes 10 cell 12V.

They are from Iron Edison. They were a little cheaper but it could have gone either way. Yes they both sell the same thing. At the time they were both pay up front and wait so no difference there. I think they are both reputable dealers. I went with the 500Ah pack because that is the maximum capacity for that case size. That is the only recommendation I could make. There are 3 case sizes I think. Whatever you get make it the max for that case size. No sense having big cases with small capacity.

Just do your research, be aware of the risks and potential rewards and decide if they are right for you or not. I just decided someone had to do the big science experiment and report back to everyone else and I was sick of killing FLAs because mother nature does not dole out energy as the FLAs want it. All I can say at this point is so far so good.

I may have posted this picture before but here it is again. Things have changed since this was taken such as a new larger inverter and they are going to change again fairly soon but here you go.

Brian

[Paul Cahill]

Hi everyone,

re: 20 x 1.v 250Ah Changhong NiFe batteries.

I am new to this forum and happened across it whilst searching for information on the batteries I bought. The batteries were purchased almost 4 years ago but for one reason or another sat in a shed until recently. They were dry stored as were the plastic bottles of Potassium and Lithium Hydroxide that came with them along with connector plates and cables etc. I have been researching the stability of the chemical components and it would appear they are now reaching the end of there recommended storage period (4 years). I have written to Changhong to ask their opinion on the chemicals and to ask where they can be purchased (fresh). I will let you know what they have to say in due course.

Having read through the entire thread it would appear there is still a lot of confusion and possibly disagreement with the advantages of NiFe, I for one am willing to give this technology a go and see if the extended life can be reached in normal use. Hopefully I will be dead before they are!!

My thanks in particular to Brain McGowan who has already taken the bull by the horns and decided to put his money where his mouth is on this one.

I do not have much electronics experience or have anything other than a layman's understanding of how all this stuff goes together. I am trying to work out what size solar pv (number x output of panels) I would need and which inverter/controller would be best to support the charging regime and power required to keep the batteries healthy. With the plethora of panels and controllers available it is impossible for me to make an informed choice. Without wishing any disrespect it is quite difficult to know who to believe!!

So if anyone on this forum can help me find my way through this fog of information I would be most grateful. Living in France doesn't help really because things are not so easy to obtain, I almost always end up buying from the UK which is my country of birth but even in the UK it is difficult to find information about the NiFe system requirements.

I look forward to discussing the relative merits of NiFe for some time to come and will update as things progress.

Paul

[Rob Beckers]

Paul, welcome to the forum!

I won't comment on the batteries, as I have no experience with NiFe. The solar PV part is something I may be able to help with though.

Your solar panels have to make up for the energy you use, they have to at least match (including losses) or you're constantly draining the batteries while falling short on the refill. So, the first thing to do is to make a list of all your appliances, light bulbs etc., and list Wattage plus the numbers of hours you use them per average day. It can be useful to do this for summer as well as winter separately since both tend to be quite different (as is the yield of solar panels).

Once you know average daily energy use it's not too hard to work out what it takes in solar panels to generate that energy, I can help you with that.

-RoB-

[Paul Cahill]

Thanks Rob,

Part of the problem we have is that our new house will be a completely different house to the one we have experienced before. Because we have the opportunity everything will be as low consumption as possible. Refrigeration will be our highest power draw but there will be a number of small power uses we don't currently use. I am also trying to work out what could reasonably be used on the DC side so that the inverter power can be reduced. In order to be self sufficient in the most economical and achievable way we have dismissed gas refrigeration leaving mains power as the most affordable overall.

Should I be trying to work this out in amp hours or watt hours?

Paul.

[Brian McGowan]

Hi Paul and welcome.

I only have a minute but wanted you to know I saw your message. I still very much like my batteries. They do drink water but I intend to solve that with a solar still. Mine came filled so I didn't have the fill materials sitting around. I don't know who to send you to in France. I got mine from Iron Edison and they are probably the same as yours as I think they come from the same place. I got mine from Iron Edison so you could look them up and ask there.
I have an outback FM80 charge controller. Since you have 20 units I am guessing you want a 24V system? This controller will handle that.
You saw my choice of inverter posted around may 20th I think.

The only other thing I have right now since I see you are building your house? I don't know how you are heating your water but I have installed a drain water heat exchanger to recover heat from the water going down the drain and use it to preheat water going into the water heater so it doesn't have to work so hard. Here is the website for that.
http://www.swing-green.com
On the left side is a link to live data where they have a monitor graphing input and output temps so you can see the difference. Let me know if you have any questions about that. It is one of the best and most worthwhile things I have done here.

How are you heating your house? If I had my way I would build the entire south wall into a giant solar air heater. Also if you have natural gas at your site or are going to use LP gas you could consider micro combined heat and power.

Bed time.
More later

Brian

[Paul Cahill]

Hi Brian,
Thanks for that, the Swing-Green heat recovery looks interesting although I doubt in our situation that it will be something I go for.
The house will have underfloor heating, hot water will be provided from a tank I am designing to store unused energy from 3 sources, DIY solar hot water collectors using finned copper pipe, Electricity (any PV unused power) and the back boiler of a small wood burner. The domestic hot water will come from the top of the heat-store, the underfloor heating from around the middle and of course heat energy coming from the 3 sources which will be transferred in using the same finned-copper tubing at the base. This is not my idea and frankly I cannot remember where I first saw this idea. I am 'guessing' that our 24v 5000Ah (20 x 1.2v 250Ah NiFe) will need around a 4kva panel setup but am still trying to plough through the technical aspects of panel type, inverter/charger type and many other things. I keep reading about shunts, I understand the principal but have no idea how or why shunts should be used. So you see, I am pretty rubbish at understanding all the techno speak and about electronics in particular!
I do appreciate the help of others and will no doubt get on peoples nerves asking about things I do not understand - which in this case is most of it!!
Paul

[Sam De Prins]

Hi there,
nr°1 tip,
1.2v 250Ah * 20 pieces in 24V, remains 250Ah's..
4.2kWh when discharged for 70%

I've some data from 200, 400, 500 and 600Ah's in 24v if you want.
Whatkind of inverter are you using?

[Paul Cahill]

Thanks Rob, Brian, Sam, plus all other previous posters on this subject.

After a lot of head scratching our winter Wh usage will be 1850Wh, summer is 2250Wh this includes a 20% contingency for underestimation.

So if I go for a circa 4kW pv array, is this likely to be sufficient to charge the batteries for the vast majority of the year. With a 24v 250Ah NiFe storage and a location providing approx 2000 hrs of sunshine per year or around 5.5 hrs per day on average and probably less than half that during the depths of winter.

Maybe I'm going to need another few panels or revert to the generator a little more often.

Any suggestions would be great.

We're experiencing a temoprary problem with our internet so apologies if i am late in responding:)

[Paul Cahill]

Would be grateful on any data you think would be helpful Sam, thanks in advance, Paul

[Paul Cahill]

Hi and thank you for your input and advice so far Sam, Rob and Brian.

I have not decided on a charge controller or inverter for that matter, as I said I am not finding the pv calculations easy, I get so far and then give up when my brain goes into meltdown, I'm not stupid but seem to have a mental block where this matter is concerned! So sorry for any inane questions I may ask.

I bought the 20 x Changhong 1,2v 250ah batteries, setting aside the age of both batteries and chemicals which may or may not need renewing before filling the batteries. What I need to try and understand/work out is the overall power output of the pv panels I will need to keep these babies happily fully charged even in the depths of winter, I am happy to supplement the charging with generator power if necessary for a limited time of the year. So the FM80 looks great and affordable and would seem on paper to do all the things I need to keep the batteries fully charged providing the panels give enough juice to do the job. I intuitively felt that a 4Kw panel array would be sufficient but I'm only going on information gleaned from various articles. Our power requirements will be fairly static with only a very small number of peaks during an average month. In total we are topping out at 2350Wh in the summer and 1850 in the winter, this includes a 20% contingency.

Any ideas please?

Paul

[Mark Cunningham]

I have not decided on a charge controller or inverter for that matter,


What I need to try and understand/work out is the overall power output of the pv panels I will need to keep these babies happily fully charged even in the depths of winter,

Hi Paul,

Here is my two cents. Outback gear. I am not a sales man. I am just really impressed.

You want inverters and charge controllers that are flexible in their operating ranges to support the deepest discharged and the highest charged voltages of your bank.

Your running a 24vdc system right? The LVCO you want is 1.0vdc, (mfg cell cut off), per cell or 20vdc. The high side would be 1.75vdc per cell which is 35vdc.

The minimum values for the Outback 24vdc inverter is 18vdc. Which would be 0.9vdc per cell.

Outback inverters have an internal charging circuit and "HBX". That allows you to pull grid directly into the inverter, and configure it to switch over at a preset bank voltage value and charge your bank.

For instance you set the HBX to cut in at 19vdc, (0.95vdc per cell). Winter comes and you drag your cells down. When your bank hits 19vdc, relays cut the load directly over to the grid and the charging circuit starts charging your bank. When the cells hit your "charged setting" HBX shuts off, shifts your load back to batteries, and disconnects the grid.

As for how much generation capacity you have. Well I can't help with the actual solar resource you have available to you. But I can show you how to do the math to calculate realistic panel outputs.

I had a discussion with an Outback engineer a while back and here is his explanation to me.

--------------- snipped out the relevant part------------------------

" Vic wrote:


To me, the best measure of PV output is to use the NOCT rating for your exact PVs (usually about 75 - 80% of the STC rating).

You can multiply the number of PVs by the NOCT, and for simplicity, you can divide this total NOCT power by the Nominal battery voltage, if your system has batteries. This will give the approximate maximum current available from the CC. Really, this value should be multiplied by approximately 0.95-ish, to account for typical CC Efficiency.

For Grid Tied systems, the NOCT X the number of PVs X 0.97-ish should get you close to the typical PV power output from the system at max sun, and nominal outdoor temperatures.

Is close to what kind of answers your question? Vic "



" Yup thank you.

If I get the math correctly, (I have 24 175W Mitsubishi PV-UD175-MF5 panels in two arrays feeding two MX-60's). I am at 16N latitude and have a magnificent solar resource with significant cell heating effects.

So using slightly worse than your case numbers,

175 * .70 = 122 pretty close to real world watts per panel.

122 * 12 = 1464 watts per array, (doing just one array for simplicity sake).

1464 / 48 = optimistic 30.5 amps per array/cc

30.5 * .9 = 27 skeptical amps per array/cc.

50 or so total system amps in a full tropical sun real world scenario. "

--------------------------------------------------------------


hope this helps.

[Paul Cahill]

Thanks for that Mark, I may have neglected an important point, if so my apologies, our solar setup will be Off Grid. I feel the need to do this with the never ending stranglehold by EDF here in France, the UK is now seeing the same relentless takeover of the power provision in there. I would rather be free of them.

We suffer fewer power outs thee days but they are still a complete nuisance in the wintertime when you need power most, we live in a heavily forested area where lines pass through them. 3 or 4 days without power is not uncommon for us during the winter!

Rather than moaning about it I have decided on this level of independence.

One additional question, where have those people who are resurrecting NiFe batteries getting the chemicals to refill them?

[Mark Cunningham]

I may have neglected an important point, if so my apologies, our solar setup will be Off Grid.

One additional question, where have those people who are resurrecting NiFe batteries getting the chemicals to refill them?

OOops. My bad. I understood that you were off grid. I just thought that you would have grid available to you, and wanted to use it to top off from time to time.

The chemicals in question are Potassium Hydroxide, (KOH), and Lithium MonoHydroxide, (LiOH). You want the best quality, normally referred to as "re-agent" grade, that you can get.

Where you would source in France, I do not know. I would start with industrial chemical supply outlets.

My cells are Nickel Cadmium. So my mixture differs from yours. Not in materials but in ratios used. You should have gotten, or be able to get, mixing instructions from ChangHong. Look in my thread for the reference documents I posted there. That is how I mix.

I will say that using "Low Carbon Distilled Water" is very important. A Chemistry prof taught me how to make a "single titration" test of distilled water to measure its absorbed carbon. Carbon that is directly poured into the cells.

The grams of carbon per liter of DW off the store shelf was scary! K2CO3 has a very measurable effect on cell performance.

Hope this helps

[Paul Cahill]

Thanks Mark, this is information I need to know because bad chemicals or DW would have a long term adverse effect and probably p*ss me off from the start. I have been researching supplies in France and have come up ZERO, I am now looking in the UK where people don't have a heart attack when I enquire, here they have you down some mad man and can't even start to understand the NiFe thing at all - at all!! So I've been a bit wrong footed form the outset although I still stand my decision to go NiFe and am determined to get this whole set up right even though I'm swimming in mud.

This forum has been excellent although I have gleaned what appears to be reliable information from some others it is usually full of people arguing the toss over battery type. This is the only forum where someone (Brian) is actually doing the business not just discussing it and I am grateful for such empirically derived information. The other minor problem seems to be the reality of modern cells to original Edison cells which appear to have been built to last at least one lifetime, we only need a good 30 years max, hopefully Changhong's offering will do that.

Brian, may I ask where you sourced your chemicals and what you ended up using as a mix ratio, chemical purity and DW. As I understand it the carbon absorbtion can be reduced by using an auto top-up system.

BTW, I noticed whilst looking for that Lithium MonoHydroxide (LiOH) and Lithium MonoHydrate (LiOH) seem to be referred to as one and the same - another confusing aspect, am I missing something?:unsure:

Very last question, I promise. How do I know what the purity of chemicals that came with the batteries was in order to buy the correct quantity of each and in the right ratio? The plastic bottles of each have nothing but the basic chemical name on them, no other information at all.:worried:

Any thoughts in addition to those already covered?

Thanks in advance for your continued help in trying to educate my addled brain on this subject. Have a great weekend.

[Paul Cahill]

Sorry Mark, having read your attachments may I ask a few questions directly.

1. You mention 'oil free electrolyte' in your titration doc - can I assume from this that you are pro 'float oil on the electrolyte to reduce CO2 absorption/water evaporation'? I can see the sense in this, what oil do you use and how does it effect topping up, cleaning out without leaving a residue on the 'plates'. Is the 'Chevron-Texaco Capella WF32' the oil or am I making a quantum leap?

2. You and others seem happy to charge the hell out of the batteries, to ensure a full charge - is this from time to time or frequently? I'm imagining that this can be done in the summertime in preparation for the winter sunlight shortfall?

3. Lithium hydroxide mono-hydrate in your consumables doc answers a question I asked earlier, I think!

4. I am in awe of your water distillation techniques, under different circumstances I would have a go but have neither the space or equipment, perhaps later for top-ups we have plenty of very hot summer sunshine for a solar distiller. Meantime what DW should I be asking for?

www.saft-ferak.cz/ferak_web/doc/elektrolyt_ferak.pdf no longer available I'm afraid.

Loved your mixing info-torial, the idea of creating a vacuum so simply, I love simple, when it's effective like this.

I bow to your accrued knowledge!:cool:

[Mark Cunningham]

purity of chemicals

When you are buying chems from a third party the answer is you don't really. The vendor can be lying to you. I looked at a lot of different vendors and settled on the one who could provide me with a spec sheet that matched the batch number for the chemicals I was purchasing. I have attached the spec sheet as an example.

It is my understanding that most vendors have to have this on hand, along with MSDS sheets. So to my thinking if they cannot provide it they are probably not reputable.

1. 'oil free electrolyte'

You are correct. That is the cell oil. Capella WF32 cross references in a petroleum guide as being the closest substitute for "Chevron Utility Oil 22". That was the original oil used in these types of cells, and has since become unavailable.

Some folks recommend using food grade pure mineral oil. I went an extra step and researched the closest match I could. I have since upgraded to Capella WF 68 which is the same oil but of a thicker viscosity. I did that because I am operating at 16N in the tropics and wanted a thicker barrier.

Working in and around the oil is a pain. I have not measured any contamination of the plates because of the oil. I have measured that cells without it will carbonate in just a few months. So it makes a difference.

No manufacturer recommends use of cell oil any more. It is NOT used in newer NiFe cells. It is NOT used in newer NiCd cells. Cell cases are better sealed and keep a slight positive pressure of electrolysed hydrogen would be my guess.

I would NOT use cell oil on your newer cells.

2. charge the hell out of the batteries

I have yet to overcharge my bank to the point that it concerns me. That is one of the beauties of Nickel cells. No more charge/discharge level babysitting. I run my charge controllers wide open in bulk all day long, every day. I routinely pump in 20+ Kwh per day.

4. water distillation techniques

Heavy charging does cause me to use more distilled water. For us here our ambient humidity level is too high for effective solar water distillation.

I was forced to go to the water system you see. I spent a fair amount of time testing different water samples. I do believe that most of the water you buy off the shelves is just tap or pond water. Using that on any kind of cell is probably degrading it.

You need to work out a real world method for making and testing your distilled water. That is just part of owning a big set of batteries that no one tells you about.

Here is how we do it. We have an excess of solar available. So every morning I run a batch of water. The distiller runs for about 4 hours. I have an electric range that I use in the mornings on sunny days. That usually takes about 45 minutes to boil. Daily I make about 6 litres.

These are stored in Mason jars and usually vacuum seal when they cool. A side benefit is that we always have a large stock of proven clean water on hand in case of a disaster.

If you have a wood or combustibles resource you could do a rocket stove distiller very easily that would produce enough.

At a minimum you need to be able to accurately test PH. An acidic distilled water is one with a high carbon content. Double plus un-good.

It is very handy to be able to test for total dissolved solids. The meters are not that expensive. If you do choose to purchase a PH or TDS meter, also purchase the calibration fluids. These commercial meters drift a lot as they get older.

no longer available

See the attachment. Those instructions are for SAFT/EDISON flooded pocket plate Nickel Cadmium cells. The process will be the same. But the ratios of chems will be different and you need to get that info from ChangHong.

creating a vacuum

That was my first test system. My final production system is a 5 gallon HDPE drum complete with valves and spigots. I have measured that your electrolyte will pick up a significant amount of atmospheric carbon while you are waiting for it to cool down.

Give us some photo's of your cells and chems please

[Paul Cahill]

Thanks for that Mark.

I will start the search for decent PH and TDS meters, same goes for a device to measure specific gravity, need something a little more precise than the run of the mill FLA type I think.

Will take some pics this week. We're currently without a phone line since a local farmer decided to carry a couple of telegraph poles off with him - didn't even notice, will be a week or so before things are back to normal. Fortunately we have a mobile internet device which we use when at our new property.

Have a great weekend, keep an eye on those electrolyte levels!

Paul

[Brian McGowan]

Hi Paul and Mark,

Mark thanks for the input. I have only had my batteries for a couple of years and they came filled so I am in no position to help Paul there other than to recommend he try contacting the place where I got mine and see if they would be willing to offer any info. I am still very happy with them.

I like my inverter a lot. It has the voltage range I need to work with the batteries. My 12V version will work up to 17V and I only charge to 16.5V so I have never had it shut off for over voltage. I assume that along with a 24v battery system you will also need 240VAC output? You should probably be able to find something suitable here.
http://www.theinverterstore.com/3000-watt-24-volt-pure-sine-wave-inverter.html

Another thing I have is a simple alternator tied by a belt to a lawn mower engine. I have a larger pulley on the lawn mower engine than on the alternator so you don't have to run the engine so hard to get good charging. I know they make 24 volt alternators. You can also get plans and code online to make a charge controller for the alternator out of an Arduino. I just use a resistors and keep an eye on it. We had a power outage one time and I needed to use the generator. Neighbors were using standard generators and were going through 5-6 gallons of fuel per day. I used 1.5 gallons the entire outage. I ran the engine at 1200RPM instead of the 3600RPM you would need to get 60Hz out of a regular generator because the inverter takes care of all of that and you only need to supply DC current to the batteries.

I also have a single cylinder Chinese diesel engine I was going to setup but haven't gotten around to it yet. I was going to set this up to use vegetable oil also.

I will keep checking in.
Brian

[Mark Cunningham]

input.

I now have the Changhong NiFe manual. It gives pretty good mixing instructions. I'd love to post it here but it is 10mb in size.

Hope this helps.

[Brian McGowan]

Also, since you do have grid power available a fair portion of the time I will mention another thing I have done to put my system to work when the grid is on. I ran an AC line through my house from my inverter and have feeds popping up into the living space at various locations. I made outlet boxes with two power cords and a relay inside. One of the power cords is attached to the normally closed contacts of the relay so this is fed to the outlets when the relay is not powered. That cord gets plugged into grid power at the wall. The other cord goes to the normally open contacts and also the coil of the relay so anytime power is applied to it the relay closes and routes this power to the outlet. I plug this into my inverter line. That way anytime I have power available I just turn on the inverter and all these boxes switch from grid power to inverter power automatically. This allows me to replace grid power with inverter power when I have enough.
It may sound complicated but it is actually much simpler in reality and once it is set up a simple flip of the switch makes it all work and saves me power. Also makes it easy when the grid goes down to switch over with the simple turning on of the inverter.
Brian

[Brian McGowan]

Mark,
I would like that manual. Email would work for me if there is no way to post it here.

Brian

[Paul Cahill]

Thanks once again all those trying hard to educate me, after being lost in a sea of pros and cons and general bitching on many other sites this is so refreshing and welcomed. Hopefully it will help others too, if not with current batteries maybe the opportunity to add NiFe as a possibility for a first or subsequent setup.

Mark, if you could attach the manual to an email I would be very grateful, my email address is paul29690@hotmail.com. I do have some paperwork but no actual mixing/commissioning/charging info specific to their NiFe batteries.

Looking forward to reading it. :D

Paul

[Mark Cunningham]

I am still very happy with them.

What voltages, on average, do you push them to during a charge cycle?

[Brian McGowan]

Mark,
I was instructed to charge them to 16.5V which is part of the reason I got the new inverter. My previous one would over voltage fault out at 15.5V so I could never use it while the batteries were mostly charged or fully charged which meant that the charge controller was choking down the panels and I couldn't use that power. Now I can use that power and I am making an Arduino controlled dump load/ low voltage disconnect controller. One of the things it will do is turn on the inverter 5 minutes after reaching and maintaining 16.5V and turn it off again at 15V. When the panels are supplying good current that inverter could run for hours that way powering things in my house instead of the grid. Right now there are times the system has been floating and absorbing for more than 5 hours a day. During all this time the charge controller is choking down the panels to prevent "overcharging".

Brian

[Brian McGowan]

Mark,
How long have you had your batteries and what do you actually have?
Brian

[Mark Cunningham]

Mark,
How long have you had your batteries and what do you actually have?
Brian

I have 171 Saft/Edison ED-240 cells. The listed total capacity is 920ah. I overhauled these cells myself. In some cases opening and disassembling the cell. My real world capacity is about 700ah.

[Rob Beckers]

I now have the Changhong NiFe manual. It gives pretty good mixing instructions. I'd love to post it here but it is 10mb in size.

Hope this helps.

Mark, I've increased the upload limit for PDFs to (roughly) 15Mb. Please give it another try. There are several things that impose limits to uploads beyond just the forum setting, I'm hopeful it works but please let me know if not.

-RoB-

[Jamin Fry]

Hay everyone ,

Im new to the forum and have been reading the comments here. These batteries really intrest me and I was thinking of how to limit the carbonation effects caused by the atmosphere over time. I really liked the idea of how you vacum seal the dionised water.

So I was thinking if it was possible to seal up the battery using silicon or somthing and placing a pressure adjustable relief valve on it so that the battery has then postitve pressure inside via the poduction of gas from the battery. You can get the valves from ebay.

What do think? Wouldn't need much pressure just enough to keep out the atmosphere .

[Mark Cunningham]

seal up the battery.

That was the purpose of cell oil in older model of cells. Liquid, semi permeable lid on top of your electrolyte. The problem with oil is plate contamination. Not sure on this but that is what I suspect.

The new Changhong cells I got have a spring loaded rubber ball type cap that will do what your thinking.

So if you purchase cells they will probably come with some type of sealing cap.

[Paul Cahill]

Hi everyone,

It's been over a year since I was able to post on this forum, won't bore you with the dramatics but I have been in a pretty shady place since failing to win the argument with a fallen tree which was something of a surprise, flesh and bone seems to be much weaker than trees and branches!

Anyway the damage was done but was lucky to be up and running again just in time to make the move along with 11 tons of 'stuff' from my very packed garage/outbuilding to our new greenfield site in the Limousin, France 3 weeks ago. Nightmare doesn't even come close, made my induced coma seem preferable - not!

Anyway we are installed in our caravan with awning, mobile workshop and lean-to kitchen, large poly tunnel with the 11 tons of aforementioned 'stuff'. my 20 x 1,2v 250ah NiFe batteries and the original chemicals are secure and dry in the mobile workshop along with anything else precious to me.

Now starts the inevitable swim though the mud of planning consent for our straw-bale house, hangar with off-grid solar array and 'gubbins' and a small workshop come guest accommodation. So far Orange have quoted us 2768€ to bring a telephone line 8 meters across the road (moled 4m under the road). Needless to say I gave them the finger and am now researching alternatives one of which seems promising. Equally EDF want 700€ to provide us with a temporary supply even though there is an existing connection to the site! As you may have gleaned I hate utilities and their daylight robbery ticket and am trying hard to work out a way we can get our solar pv up and running at the worst time of year and without anything to house it that would not bring the bureaucratic planners down on us like a ton of bricks. Along with being a little less than 100% yet I ay have to concede to EDF but would really like to give them the finger too.

So that's my update. Will hopefully be back here on a regular basis, mainly to get back to where I was a year or so ago, apologies if I start repeating myself, I will try hard to go back over the last 18 months posts so as not to irritate those who so generously gave advice and help when I was even more clueless than I am now. Meanwhile if there's any advice you can give to help get the solar pv and running sooner rather than later I would greatly appreciate it. What panels, how many and what running gear, charge controller, inverter etc. Obviously I want to use the batteries I already have and as of pre accident I still haven't sourced new chemicals or if indeed I need them at all. Shit happens but I'm a fighter and will get there in the end, as always a little help can make a big difference.

Take care all, Paul

[Rob Beckers]

Paul, welcome back! Since you're now in France my advice, any time you have to deal with a crooked contractor, utility, or other noxious institution, is to get a nice bottle of wine, sit back, and smell the roses... :)

Regarding Orange, which I presume is the local telco: Both my house and business no longer have a phone line. It's high-speed Internet only, and the phone runs via VOIP. The phone company here too has perfected and legalized high-way robbery, this way I never have to deal with them.

Hopefully you have some choice in Internet providers over there. If that too is monopolized by Orange that'd be a bummer. By the way, for the business the only physical line running in is for power. The Internet uses a wireless point-to-point connection to a tower about a click away.

-RoB-

[Sana Bucha]

I probably came to your forum and read out your post. I felt that you are really a hard time-taker that's why I enjoyed it a lot. Thanks for it. I also tell my friends and team members to come here for more and more info then this. :p

[John DAngelo]

That was the purpose of cell oil in older model of cells. Liquid, semi permeable lid on top of your electrolyte. The problem with oil is plate contamination. Not sure on this but that is what I suspect.

The new Changhong cells I got have a spring loaded rubber ball type cap that will do what your thinking.

So if you purchase cells they will probably come with some type of sealing cap.

Mark the float oil does not "contaminate" the plates. It FLOATS on top of the electrolyte and NEVER comes in contact with the plates unless you let the water level fall below the MINIMUM line and that is just bad news. . As long as you keep the electrolyte level above the MINIMUM line on your cells you will be fine. You need to do that anyway. Be Utility Free has found (has sold China nickel Iron cells for OVER 23 years and sold Changhong cells for a number of those years) that the BLUE flip top caps with the rubber balls in them that act as a check valve eventually get crusted with potassium hydroxide crystals from electrolyte evaporation and become ineffective over time. These need to be cleaned on a regular basis (monthly normally). See attached picture. That is a mild example, I have seem them much worse!

When you are ready to change electrolyte you simply suck the float oil off the top of the electrolyte. What little is left in the cell will simply float to the top of the new electrolyte. In fact SAFE actually adds the float oil inside the cell WITHOUT any electrolyte and when you put the new electrolyte in the nickel cadmium cells the oil just floats to the top!

If you install a gravity battery watering system which Be Utility Free sells the caps create a barrier from the outside air and the cell is always under a positive pressure as H and O are created by electrolysis during normal charging and discharging so that virtually no electrolyte is exposed to the outside air. And if you do an automatic water feed than there is virtually no outside air that comes in contact with the water going into your cell through the watering caps.

JD

[John DAngelo]

I have 171 Saft/Edison ED-240 cells. The listed total capacity is 920ah. I overhauled these cells myself. In some cases opening and disassembling the cell. My real world capacity is about 700ah.

Mark,

Be Utility Free sold reconditioned nickel cadmium cells back in the mid 1990's. Some of their customers that we sold them to are still using them.

Why? The truth is that both nickel cadmium and nickel iron cells share the same alkaline chemistry. The thing that normally kills them is the carbonation build up in the electrolyte. That is what usually causes a loss of battery capacity. Other reasons are a short in the cell and abusing the cell but 100% DOD discharge cycles that put to much stress on the plates. This causes the active materials in them to fall out. If enough falls out you end up with enough in the bottom of the container cell or between the cell to short the cell.

Not bad if your NiCd ED 240's real world battery capacity is about 700 Ah. Still useful at 80% of your 925 Ah rated capacity. I predict that used EV car batteries will become a HUGH market. An EV car battery is considered "dead" or has no longer a useful life in an EV if the battery capacity loses 20% of its rated capacity. That still leave you with 80% of battery capacity!

Attached is a photo of an ED-160 cell. The ED-240 is a little bigger but has the same green plastic case. These cells where made by SAFE specifically for use in railway crossing stations. They no longer make them. You can find a few tube videos of people who have taken them apart , cleaned them up and put them back into service. These is also a serial number in the tops o fetch cell case that will give you the year of manufacture.

JD

[John DAngelo]

I have 171 Saft/Edison ED-240 cells. The listed total capacity is 920ah. I overhauled these cells myself. In some cases opening and disassembling the cell. My real world capacity is about 700ah.

Awesome! What year where they manufactured? I am sure that will be of great interest to all the readers on here. You do know that there i s serial number on the tops of the cells that will give you the date of manufacture, right?

I personally have a 12V, 37 Ah original Thomas A Edison battery manufactured 1942, making them 73 years old. I use them to run my DC swamp cooler pump and charge them off a 150W PV module. Still working at close to 100% capacity. I will post a picture sometime of them.

JD

[John DAngelo]

You are correct. That is the cell oil. Capella WF32 cross references in a petroleum guide as being the closest substitute for "Chevron Utility Oil 22". That was the original oil used in these types of cells, and has since become unavailable.

That is true. Chevron Utility Oil 22 was used for years and is NO longer available. Not sure if that was the oil used by Thomas Edison, but it could have been. I have an original small jar of the oil he sold but have never opened it.

Some folks recommend using food grade pure mineral oil. I went an extra step and researched the closest match I could. I have since upgraded to Capella WF 68 which is the same oil but of a thicker viscosity. I did that because I am operating at 16N in the tropics and wanted a thicker barrier.

NEVER use plain food grade mineral oil. It will coat your plates and cause total havoc.

Working in and around the oil is a pain. I have not measured any contamination of the plates because of the oil. I have measured that cells without it will carbonate in just a few months. So it makes a difference.

You are correct. There is NO contamination of the plates if the correct float oil is used. Working with oil is not much of a pain IMO. You only use it once and then when you have to change electrolyte then it becomes a minor pain, but not impossible to work with, its benefits far out weigh the hassles IMO.

Cells without oil do not carbonate in just a "few months", at least not to the point that they cell loses battery capacity. What was the carbonate build up is just a "few months? I have measured carbonate build up in cells and I have found that using the flip top blue cell caps without float oil that the carbonate build up is about 1% a year. At 15% build up it is recommend to charge the electrolyte, but we have measured decarbonate build up as high as 30% and the cells where still working fine.

No manufacturer recommends use of cell oil any more. It is NOT used in newer NiFe cells. It is NOT used in newer NiCd cells. Cell cases are better sealed and keep a slight positive pressure of electrolysed hydrogen would be my guess.

This is NOT true. Be Utility Free recommends it in their manual. The reason other companies do not is they want to sell you chemicals sooner than later.

I would NOT use cell oil on your newer cells.

I would. But the best thing to use is a gravity feed battery watering system sold by Be Utility Free. It provides a sealed system that should keep the carbonate build up in your electrolyte at bay for a very long time!


I have yet to overcharge my bank to the point that it concerns me. That is one of the beauties of Nickel cells. No more charge/discharge level babysitting. I run my charge controllers wide open in bulk all day long, every day. I routinely pump in 20+ Kwh per day.

Exactly. People who use lead acid batteries (also have to put up with constant rotten i. e. sulfuric acid smells) constantly lose a lot of energy from their PV array because they have to go from BULK to ABSORB and then to FLOAT. My educated guess is that you lose at least 30% of your PV array potential energy because of all these various charging stages. When your CC is throttled back at say 2 PM my CC is cracking out the amps. With a nickel iron battery there is only one rule: charge it! Run your CC wide open. BULK is where its at!

JD

[John DAngelo]

I will say that using "Low Carbon Distilled Water" is very important. A Chemistry prof taught me how to make a "single titration" test of distilled water to measure its absorbed carbon. Carbon that is directly poured into the cells.

Mark, please explain this "simple" method you use n distilled water?

The grams of carbon per liter of DW off the store shelf was scary! K2CO3 has a very measurable effect on cell performance

True. What readings where you getting with off the shelf C2CO3 readings?

Hope this helps[/QUOTE]

[John DAngelo]

I am using the BVM700 that John DiAngelo sold me.
Brand begins with a V but I can't remember it righ now. If you search on battery monitor and that number you should find it.

Brian is correct. He bought the Victron Model Victron BVM700. BUF chose that battery monitor because of ease of hook up and also being able to download free software that you can use for this meter. You plug a cable into the back of the meter from your laptop and you are good to go.

The thing with ALL battery monitors is that you have to usually synchronize them at least once a month. I have been to customers houses who use them and they are VERY accurate if operated properly.

JD

[John DAngelo]

If you know something you should just spill it. Although, I already own the batteries and the test is well underway. One cycle per day or less depending on what mother nature dishes out.

There are claims that too great a DOD will kill batteries of all types and too little a DOD will do the same. So far I am less than 20%DOD average per day. In theory, according to your words this should be well within the ability of this battery to last a long time.

I’m sure if John has something to say he will chime in here. Now he has some data to comment on.

Here I am .. maybe little late...The thing that gets me with ""bill Blake" is to the best of my knowledge he has NEVER owned a set of nickel iron cells. To me he is nothing but a rebel rouser. He brings up the dumbest things at times. He talks not from actual experience with nickel iron cells, but what he gets for others quite often, what he "reads" , what he thinks, but really NOT from what actual experience with the nickel iron cell or whatever. .In other wards he has no "skin in the game" unlike you Brian.

Hope doesn’t get you anywhere. Testing does and that’s what I’m doing. As far as I can tell I’m doing more than others are doing.

Exactly. And I have been selling nickel iron cells for over 23 years. My son has an 1995 set of China nickel iron cells (made by Wazhau, bought out by Changhong) that (with 2 electrolyte changes) are going on 23 years old now. 500 Ah 24V and he has abused the hell out of them to say the least. That is another story!

Brian[/QUOTE]

[Paul Cahill]

Hi folks, thanks Rob for your kind words and equal mistrust of big utilities.

So now with the power play of EDF Enedis ans EDRF I have decided to buy and install my pv system within the next few weeks. This leaves me less than a 100% fit, both mentally and physically. I should also apologise to anyone who contributed last year before my accident, I know I am repeating myself, no choice and between a rock and a hrad place for sure. So please make any suggestions you have and I will try to swim through the muddy waters and pay my dwindling cash reserves to get a system up and running before we freeze to death!

So here it is: I already have 20 x 1.2v 250ah NiFe batteries, 5 years old but unused, along with the chemicals ans associated accessories that came with them. i know I may need to replace the chemicals with new ones and I am working on that now.

What I need to know is this: what panels, charger, charge/inverter do I need to satisfy the demands of these batteries to keep them fully charged given an average of 5 hours sun and an average of 3 poor charging days in every 8. The panels will be facing 8 degrees east of south, we are based in south west france near Limoges. We have a clear view of the sun and the panels can be set at any angle deemed ideal. We need 11 kWh of 230v AC per day plus direct DC lighting and battery charging for our temporary home (caravan).

This is the basics of our needs, any other information can be supplied if required. Ideally I would like the system to be able to charge an electric car which will do minimal mileage, probably less than 100 miles per week on average, in the future so this can be incorporated from the outset or be a later addition. I am open to adding additional battery power but I would prefer to organise power usage around available daytime AC than go overboard with tending even more NiFe batteries on a daily basis.

All contributions will be gratefully received, if you have an opinion I would love to hear it.

This is a real call for help from this community and you can be assured that I will feed back my experience to try and help others who, like me find this sort of thing desireable but seemingly impossible to figure out. Above all I want to give a very big finger to EDF!

Take care, it's an uncertain world, Paul :embarrassedt:

[Rob Beckers]

Paul, I've run some numbers: Every 1kW of solar PV mounted at 45-degree tilt and facing south, will produce just about 1.1 kWh per average day in energy in the middle of winter in your area. Your worst month for solar is December. At that angle the panels will shed snow reasonably well, and better face the sun (not very high in the sky at that time).

From spring through fall the same 1kW will produce 2.4 kWh per average day. Same tilt-angle and orientation. Being 8 degrees off south makes no difference.

Therefore, to produce 11 kWh per average day requires 10.3 kW in PV in winter, 4.7 kW of PV in summer. At the same time, the battery bank for such a system would be 2,750 Ah at 24 Volt. That would give you the usual design standard of 3 days of autonomy. Granted, you can cycle NiFe deeper without cutting into battery life in the same way as with lead-acid, but it wouldn't be a much smaller bank.

Since you have a 24 Volt 250 Ah battery bank I don't think 11 kWh per day is realistic. You'll either have to economize (a great deal) in energy use, and/or run the generator (a lot), or both. I'll put it another way: With 24V/250Ah you have 6 kWh in stored energy. Just getting through the night will use up 5.5 kWh (assuming 50% of 11 kWh), depleting those batteries to 8%. Even NiFe will not do that very long.

-RoB-

[John DAngelo]

[QUOTE=Paul Cahill;31762]Hi folks, thanks Rob for your kind words and equal mistrust of big utilities.


So here it is: I already have 20 x 1.2v 250ah NiFe batteries, 5 years old but unused, along with the chemicals ans associated accessories that came with them. i know I may need to replace the chemicals with new ones and I am working on that now.

I will expand on what Rob said in his reply. A 250 Ah 24 V system would store 6000 watts or 6 kWh. OF course one should never us e100% of your nickel iron battery storage but can regularly use 80% of its rated capacity at a C/5 rate. 80% of 6 kWh is 4.8 kWh. SO i f you use 11 kWH a day as Rob siad you will have to run a back up generator a lot. You say your daily kWh is 11 kWH. Your battery bank would not even be able to store ONE days worth of usage.

Even if you had very large PV array you would still not be able to meet you needs. If a large PV array you may be able to get by through the evening hours, but only if your evening loads where small. And if your evening loads totaled less that the 4.8 kWh in the battery bank.

Then to add to the deficit you said you wanted to charge an EV. That would add yet another load. Bottom line is that you really need to add to your nickel iron battery bank. You can add any Ah capacity to your nickel iron battery bank as long as it is the same battery voltage. I think you will need at least a 700-800 Ah battery bank to be able to do what you want t do. Living off grid is not for the faint at heart. It takes proper management and a substancial investment in equipment to be utility free.

Our rule of thumb is for charging nickel iron battery banks is that for every 1 kW you will be able to support 150 AH of battery bank. So you are looking at a 2 kW PV system but up to at least a 5 kW PV system to do what you want to do. With PV being so inexpensive today I would even go with a large rPV array.

One last thing. A typical 150 V charge controller such as the MidNite Model 150 can only charge up to 2400 Watts @ 24V. So keep that in mind. With a 5 kW PV array you would need two charge controllers.

JD

[Paul Cahill]

Thanks Rob and Jon for your honest and very valuable input.

I knew when I bought the NiFe batteries that I may well need to add to them. If I understand correctly you say I can add any additional ah rated batteries of the same voltage, in my case 1.2 v cells x 20. Would I run these in series as a 36 or 48v system, how does that balance out for charging etc or does a charge controller take care of these ah differences? So what do you recommend in terms purchasing an additional set of batteries? Also which charge controller/s and inverter/s do you recommend looking at please?

In essence it may be possible to use the current batteries with a smaller array at the start and add the additional batteries and pv panels (could buy all the panels and wait to add some later for example). Our current needs are much lower and we will not need my stated 11kW per day for another 2 to 3 years. Our current needs could be whatever we have available which currently is nothing other than a 3kva diesel generator, noisy and quite expensive to run. We currently run it every other day for 4 hours to charge laptop/iPad, cordless drill, portable lighting batteries etc and the caravan 12v battery.

I think 3kW a day would be ample if I include a small electric water heater for the shower, my next installation job. I guess what I am asking is how much should I be able to comfortably generate to satisfy the current battery bank and what would I need to do that? Then what would I need to add (and plan to do so as I am building) to supply our needs. The 11 kW per day allowed for occasional spikes in usage, I calculated that the very minimum we could live with was almost half that and I guess there's always room to shave things more and maybe take another look at substituting more DC rather than AC appliances and lighting. In my book it's always better to overestimate than underestimate but when serious money is at stake realism is probably the best approach! The EV idea was a definite last minute idea but as I said mileage will be minimal and it would be the smallest runabout available. I'm happy to discount it altogether for now.

I totally understand both your comments and thank you again for taking the time to make them.

Take care, Paul

[Brian McGowan]

I only have a few minutes here but I have these quick thoughts.
I made a small generator out of a car alternator and a lawn mower engine. You can run this at a slower pace than a regular generator as the inverter is the thing that comes up with the 50/60hz not the speed of the engine. I had an event where we lost power for 2.5 days. The neighbors that stayed ran generators and went through 5-6 gallons of gas a day. Remembering I also have panels but was able to run my engine at 1200RPM or less I consumed 1.5 gallons over the course of the entire event.
So I say set up your batteries, get a good inverter, put out the panels you have and make one of these generators to make up the difference and help at night until you can improve your system to be independent.
I see John D has made some comments. Wanted to say my batteries are still working great.
Also, my arduino project is working great. It checks battery voltage and when they are charged it turns on my inverter and diverts power into the house. Maybe something like that would be good for you also. When your batteries are charged it could divert power into your water heater or something. I made some outlet boxes that switch from grid power to inverter power anytime the inverter turns on so that things that are plugged into them. Some of the things I have on them are the fridge, washing machine, computer room and entertainment center so it does almost all phantom loads. I charge all phones and tablets on DC power direct from the batteries and also charge AA and AAA batteries with a charger that plugs into a cigarette lighter socket attached to the batteries.
Just some thoughts.
Brian

[Mark Cunningham]

Mark, please explain this "simple" method you use n distilled water?

Hi John, You and I have spoken in the past.

Sorry for the delayed response. Here is parts of a manual I've written on overhauling ED-240's.

Nickel Cell Info (https://www.greenpowertalk.org/showpost.php?p=30968&postcount=1)

See LCDW, and Titrating. In the references are links to the original papers and patents where I found that info.

Testing for carbon in distilled water can be accomplished in two ways.

1.) PH testing. Acidic distilled water has atmospheric carbon dissolved in it.

2.) Performing a "single titration" using 1NKOH. This test works but its accuracy is dependent on the quality of your KOH. 95.5% KOH means 4.5% error in your titration values.

I am sure that there are better tests. But I am in the boonies. That is about the best I can accomplish here.

Using the single titration I've measured in excess of 15 grams of carbon per liter in off the shelf distilled water locally available. That's why I am forced to make my own DW.

Thank you for the tips on cell oil and cell tops. I had some worries when I was overhauling my cells that contact between cell oil and the plates was causing a problem.

I disagree on the effects of K2CO3 on performance. I've measured it so many times I can chart it. Performance begins to fall off at 12 -> 15% K2CO3 per volume. It really falls off a cliff at above 30%.

There are scads of patents and papers that document this. That is for NiCd cells.

For my NiFe cells ..... don't know yet. Still testing.

I've seen all of the recent youtube vids on overhauling ED-240's. At first glance I am skeptical of using Gunk carburetor cleaner on the positive plates. I hope it works in the long term. I might be able to squeeze out a little more performance.

I would love to see any information you have on rebuilding and reconditioning Nickel Cells.

PM me your email adx please.


Salamat Po

[Paul Cahill]

Thanks Brian for you suggestions. I would be interested in all you ideas as you have already put them into use. I don't know anything about arduino but would love to learn more about your system use and setup. We will be totally off grid so need things to work reliably. Obviously winter use is oir primary goal as we're heading into that season very quickly here and I need to get a system up and running asap. I have decided to forget using the NiFe batteries until we are nearer completion of our hose which may be 2-3 years away yet. So I need a reliable off grid set up that will give us 4 or 5 kwh usable, this should enable us to manage the next 2 years.

So if anyone would like to suggest a peurchase list I would be very happy to go ahead with a full system and install it, hopefully before the end of October.

There are several budget systems for around £4000 but none of them seem to include decent expansion/add on capacity for the end system that needs to soutput 10kWh usable power over the entire year. Yes I can install pretty much an size system within reason and. Would rather have 20% more than I need as the excess can be dumped into my hot water heatsink.

Any suggestions taken seriously and gratefully.

Take care all, Paul

[Mark Cunningham]

Any suggestions taken seriously and gratefully.

I like Outback gear. However I do not know if its quality has suffered after they were bought out by Alpha a few years back.

In my opinion 250ah of NiFe cells is not enough for your needs.

So unless you are looking at purchasing more Nickel cells, you will be purchasing another chemistry. Lead Acid, LiFePo, or whatever.

Be advised you cannot operate Acid and Alkaline based storage systems in the same space or with the same tools. They will interact with each other. Damaging one or both sets.

Storage is by far the largest expense in a self-generation system.


If I were in your shoes .......

First I would obtain the materials, equipment, and knowledge to titrate your electrolyte.

Mix up a liter or so using your supplies and test it.

The docs I posted will let you make a decision on the quality of your existing KOH. It may still be usable.

Hope this helps.

[Paul Cahill]

Thanks Mark, I completely agree with your comments and suggestions. I have decided to go with another type of battery, probably LiFePo mainly due to lifespan/cost. I will then use the 250ah NiFe's in a separate setup that is less critical, as time goes on I may be able to afford a larger set of NiFe's once I've gained more experience with them. The most important thing for me now is to get something up and running asap. I will probably end up spending more money than I need overall but I guess mistakes are how we learn! Not ideal but realistic.
Given comments I've read thus far, I would say that Outback products are not quite what they once were, maybe good used units would be a wiser buy!
The saga goes inexorably on.
Take care, Paul:love:

[Brian McGowan]

I am considering another charge controller so I can add the last two panels I have to my system. I will not be using Outback basically because they just refuse to add an Ethernet port and I want connectivity to my system components. At this point in history I feel no equipment made should be without network connectivity. I have basically settled on Midnight solar I think.

[Paul Cahill]

Hi everyone,

Does anyone have experience of these batteries?

Also Goodwe inverters & Telesun panels.

Have been going through the choices and running myself ragged, have been offered a setup of these and would like advice as to their suitability.

Anyone?

Regards, Paul

[Paul Cahill]

12 X Talesun TP-660M-B panels.

Goodwe ES Bi Directional on and Off grid inverter https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5354537ce4b0e65f5c20d562/t/58c292f0b3db2b118f33825c/1489146620488/Goodwe_SE+Series+specs.pdf

3 x1kW or 1 X 3 Soltaro lighting batteries, could possibly double this if necessary.

Hope that helps, Paul

[Brian McGowan]

Just checking in. Dark days of winter and 10 days from the shortest day of the year.
It has been more than 6 weeks since my batteries have been fully charged and probably a month since they have been less than 200AH from fully charged. I am sure typical FLA batteries would be heavily sulfated by now.
Last year under the same conditions they came right back when the days got longer. I expect the same this year.
I have not purchased a second charge controller yet but I am nearly settled on Midnight Solar Classic 150.
That is all for the moment.
Brian

[Rob Beckers]

Brian, you're probably right about lead-acid being sulphated by now. It sure is convenient to have a chemistry that doesn't care about state-of-charge!

Could you give me a little summary about pros/cons of NiFe? I know, you're written up most of it over time on here. I'm just after what I can tell people that ask me about it. One thing I'm still trying to figure out is how often the electrolyte needs to be replaced and what's involved in that (in both cost and chemistry knowledge).

B.t.w. can't go wrong with a Classic charge controller! IMO still the best one out there!

Thanks!

-RoB-

[Brian McGowan]

Rob,
I wanted you to know I am working on this. I didn't get as far as I wanted to as fast as I wanted to but I have a nice little word document I am compiling this information on. I will copy and paste here when I get it completed.
Thanks for your patience as I try to be as complete and accurate as possible.

Brian

[Brian McGowan]

OK I will try to summarize the different aspects of these batteries.
First I have a quick question. I am looking for a battery charger that will allow me to get up to 16.5 volts or more and will do 20 amps or more for cheap. Got any recommendations?

As a summary I have a 500AH 12V battery pack. I started this is October of 2013 so my pack is 4 years old now. I can promise you I am not being gentle on this pack.

As I understand it compared to FLAs

Pros:

They don’t sulfate or be damaged by low state of charge for extended periods of time.

They can take being undercharged or overcharged without damage.

Does not need three stage charging so less power and time is wasted providing charging power at lower rates than the panels are able to provide. Also panels only provide power while the sun is shining on them which is not as long as required for a proper 3 stage charge.

Can stand to be discharged deeper many more times. I believe regular discharging to 50% is acceptable. I don’t know but I am testing the crap out of these batteries. I am providing no mercy in an effort to find out for the sake of community knowledge.
They don’t care so much about temperature. Mine live in the garage which exposes them to wide temperature swings. At this moment it is 40 degrees out there and 35 outside. It is going to get colder as the week goes on.

Should last at least 20 years but can last as much as 50 years and possibly more. Can be refurbished with a changing of the electrolyte which is merely lye and distilled water. See below.

Nowhere near as toxic. Contains Lye and water and nickel.

Cons:

Greater self-discharge rate by about 5%.

Less efficient charging by about 5%.

Consumes more water. I intend to remedy this by making a solar still even though distilled water is really cheap.

Larger so you need more space.

More expensive by about 3 times I think but I would need someone with more knowledge of FLA pricing and characteristics to determine what it would take to match the characteristics I have called out above. I kind of need a little help here on this one.

I don’t know whether this is a pro or con. It is a maintenance expense but it substantially increases the live if the batteries which is something you can’t do with FLA batteries. Quoting from an email I received from Iron Edison about the replacement of electrolyte “The electrolyte typically should be replaced every 10 years or so to recover any capacity losses due to carbonate buildup in the electrolyte. Under normal use, you can expect to see a 1-2% per year electrical capacity loss in our Nickel Iron batteries due to this carbonate buildup, so once this lost capacity becomes an issue (typically but not always at the 10 year mark), replacing the electrolyte will resolve this. The cost of electrolyte replacement can be around 10% of the purchase price in most cases.”
Basically you will purchase Lye and mix it with distilled water and that is your replacement electrolyte.

Brandon Williams from Iron Edison who I bought my batteries from and John DAngelo from Beutilityfree may want to chime in here.

My personal feeling is this is a more suitable arrangement for alternate energy as they can deal with energy in the manner and quantities mother nature supplies it.

I hope this proves helpful.
Brian

[Rob Beckers]

Thanks Brian!
Did you do any battery capacity measurements to see where the batteries are at the 3-year mark?

Actually once in 10 year electrolyte replacement is much better than I thought it would be. That is viable for most (I realize there are people that won't be capable of doing this themselves, that is where a solar/RE installer could come in).

-RoB-

[Brian McGowan]

I have not done a capacity measurement. I am not sure how to do that. Can you define that process or point me at a procedure or document?
All I can say is I don't "feel" any difference so far.

Any thoughts on the battery charger?

[John DAngelo]

Brian,

I can help with a charger that will get to 18 V DC.

As far as battery capacity that is easy. You need an AH meter. You simply charge it up to the rated battery capacity taking into account the battery efficiency (80%) then discharge it at manufactures C/5 rating.

I think you have a 500 Ah battery. So charging should be at a C/5 rate or 100 Ah/hour for 7 to 8 hours. Then discharge at that same 100 Ah rate. The Ah meter will take care of all the calculations for you and discharge to 1.0 Volt per cell.

We use an Ah meter that you can interface with a computer that is reasonably priced. However the Panametric by Bogart engineering is the best with a computer interface but also pricy.

Every nickel iron battery bank really should have an Ah meter in the system because you simply cannot measure battery capacity using SG like you can a lead acid. The reason is because in a nickel iron cell there is no change of the electrolyte SG during the charge or discharge cycle. Running a nickel iron battery without an Ah meter is like driving a car without gas gauge. You can drive a car without one but would you really want to?

JD

[Brian McGowan]

John,

I have the Victron AH meter you sold me installed into the system. I seem to recall something about that being interfaceable. I am at work and can't remember the exact model but you can probably look up in your records and find out.

Yes 500AH 12V nickel iron battery.

I do understand the SG thing and why that won't work.

Brian

[Brian McGowan]

So charge at 25 amps for 7-8 hours then discharge at 25 amps until the cells get to 1v/cell loaded or unloaded?

[John DAngelo]

Brian,

No if you charged at 25 ah it would take 28 hours! The battery mfg rates the cell at a C/5 rate. Thus one can safely charge at 100 Ah! But most people have to little PV in a lot of cases. If you charge at 25 A for 7 hours you would only put in 175 Ah!

The computer interface does not cost much and the software is free.

I believe you can count up and down Ah with this Ah meter. You can set to AH and not percent and it should count up to the Ah. For example you charge and the meter counts up to say 700 Ah and then it resets to 0 Ah after you remove the charge source. Then you discharge (without PV input) to -500 Ah and then look at the voltage reading and divide by the number of cells. If your VPC is about 1.0 V or above that than you have a battery that has full battery capacity.

Most people never test their battery capacity as long as they are preforming as expected.

JD

[Brian McGowan]

Yes I check this meter every day. It does count up and down in AH.

So in the summer time I can actually get it to float for 4-5 hours if I don't use it and discharge it the night before and it is a sunny day. Can I assume this would be fully charged?
And then WOW discharge 500 AH out of the pack? yikes!!

This is definitely a summer time project.

[Brian McGowan]

Does this AH meter interface talk over Ethernet? I am probably going to run a network node out there and put a small switch.

[John DAngelo]

Does this AH meter interface talk over Ethernet? I am probably going to run a network node out there and put a small switch.

Not that I know of. Just hooks to a computer and software for a PC.

"So in the summer time I can actually get it to float for 4-5 hours if I don't use it and discharge it the night before and it is a sunny day. Can I assume this would be fully charged?
And then WOW discharge 500 AH out of the pack? yikes!!"

YEs I would not assume anything lol. You would have to put the Ah into the battery bank to get the Ah out fo it.

And you have a 12V 500 Ah battery bank therefore it should hold 500 Ah!

Well if your Ah meters counts UP (positive #) and Down (negative #) then you can defiantly use that Ah meter to test battery capacity.

JD

[Brian McGowan]

So what is the charger you said you had for this that would get me to 18 volts?

[Brian McGowan]

It is 8 degrees outside. It is 24 degrees in the garage. The battery bank is at 32 degrees and still functioning normally. I had to take my distilled water out of the garage because it was freezing.
That is all.

[Paul Cahill]

So back to my 20 x 1.2v 250ah NiFe Changhong batteries. Having struggled with my new GiidWe/Pylon tech system I'm now back on the trail of my secondary system. The question's simple, what would anyone with experience recommend to run these batteries, inverter/charger and panel wattage given our location - Cussac 87159, France. We can offer the panels uninterrupted southward views. I need a reliable equipment. We are totally off-grid and need to be able to attach a generator for a belt and braces approach. Not brand aware and happy for informed views on more obscure and less expensive kit if reliable.

Your suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks in advance Paul

[Baja Scott]

Microsoft is investing 94.05 million yuan in Sichuan Changhong Electric, one of the mainland's largest television makers, to tap into the country's growing demand for family entertainment through digital home appliances.


Microsoft (China) will become a strategic investor and buy 15 million shares of Changhong through a private placement at a price of 6.27 yuan per share, a 37 per cent discount to the last closing price before the shares were suspended from trading last Friday, Changhong said in a statement filed with the Shanghai stock exchange

Something to be said for Changhong...

[Paul Cahill]

Yes Baja,
I checked up on Changhong before I bought the batteries, they cost me 1500€ so probably about half the price paid originally or a little less even, they're now 5 or 6 years old and never been commissioned. The condition and ultimate effectiveness of the chemicals after being stored for so long is debatable but despite making enquires I have had no replies. I will try contacting Changhong directly again, the chap I exchanged emails with was very helpful and informative. Despite what people may say about Chinese manufacturing their customer service is usually very good.

What I want to do is to set up a system that's not too complicated, I might not be around to maintain it and my wife isn't great with this type of technology! Also it has to be affordable having already spent 60% of our total solar budget already. My gut tells me it's doable, after all these batteries were designed in much older technological times. Solar PV, Inverter and o charger plus batteries! Problem is their relative obscurity, not many of the people selling the control gear have little or no real experience with the requirements of these batteries.

The search goes on!

[Brian McGowan]

Status report:
Yesterday 2/3/18 was the first day this year that my Arduino LVD/DLC detected the batteries were fully charged and fired up the inverter and dumped power into my house for 1.25 hours. Days are getting longer.

Paul, What do you want to do with this system? Do you want a completely independent system from your other system? I am trying to play catch up here.

[Brian McGowan]

Paul,

I have this inverter which I got because it can handle the voltage swings that a Nickel Iron battery goes to with a shutdown voltage of 17 volts.

You can probably find a 24v 240VAC inverter with similar capabilities.

https://theinverterstore.com/product/3000-watt-pure-sine-power-inverter-12-vdc-to-120-vac-industrial-grade/

I have an Outback Flexmax 80 for a charge controller. However I am on the verge of getting a Midnight Solar Classic 150SL because it has an Ethernet port and for some reason Outback has not decided that this is something anyone would want. Either of these charge controllers would work for battery voltages up to 72 volts.

Anyway I am sure that would get you set up.

[Paul Cahill]

Thanks for that Brian, will take a look.

In answer to your previous question, Yes, I'm looking to create a second totally independent solar PV system to allow us to have 'some' power for critical systems like refrigeration lighting and a couple of small DC pumps, basically providing breakdown or redundancy in either system. I would need to provide a switch in the house wiring to allow switchover from either input, this should be doable without too much of a problem/cost.

We will be using the separate systems to run different parts of our build, the current system will run our house and outside summer kitchen, the NiFe system will run our small visitor house and the tools etc in our large shed, both systems will be housed on this same shed roof and internally for the control gear. Sounds complicated but I see it OK in my head!!!

Have you any ideas on a dump load system to use all available energy when we have a surplus, likely to be at least 6 to 8 months of the year to be honest. Such a pity to waste any energy having gone to the trouble to harness it!

All thoughts you may have are welcomed, I like everyone else being never too old to learn new tricks!

Cheers, Paul

[Brian McGowan]

Paul,
I will tell you what I have done here.
I have mentioned I made my low voltage disconnect and dump load controller using an Arduino driving 8 small relays. The dump load part works as follows. When it senses that 16.5 volts has been reached for 5 minutes it closes a relay which fires up the inverter through its remote power on function. After 20 seconds a second relay is closed which connects the load (my house circuit) to the inverter so power can flow.
I ran a line through my house that carries this inverter power to several outlet boxes in the basement from which lines go up unto the house at various points. At these points I have made outlet boxes with two power cords and a relay in them. One of the power cords gets plugged into the standard grid outlet. The other power cord plugs into the circuit from the inverter and also attaches to the coil of the relay also. That way anytime the inverter turns on the relays in these boxes become energized and switch from the grid power to the inverter power thus powering these devices from my inverter automatically. I have these boxes at the clothes washer, refrigerator, entertainment center and my entire computer room. I know you don't have a grid system but you do have two separate systems. I have another relay programed as a second dump load which turns on if the first dump load is operating and voltage is above 16.5 volts for an additional 5 minutes. The first dump load turns off when the voltage is below 15 volts for 5 minutes to make sure it doesn't shut off when the fridge turns on or some other short surge occurs. The second load turns off at 15.5 volts and that happens instantly so as not to make the first load turn off and on too frequently.
I have 3 low voltage disconnect relays so I still have 2 relays left for additional uses such as dump loads. You could set these relays up in any way you desire. I have tried to imagine what an off grid person might use this for. I have a friend that lives off grid in Washington State. I know when she gets home from work she fires up a generator and pumps water out of a well into a big tank up on a hill so it can gravity feed to the house. She has a solar power system charging batteries and I can imagine the batteries get full while she is at work and then the panels get choked down. I thought as a dump load this excess power might be used to run the well pump at least for a while so she might not have to run the generator as long or even at all.
The Arduino is programmable so if you can program you could set this up to do any number of things for you. It is kind of up to your imagination and needs.
Anyway, those are my thoughts so far. Think on it and ask if you have any questions. I will answer and make suggestions as I can.

[Paul Cahill]

Thanks for that Brian,
It sounds like you have a great setup there with a finely tuned way of getting the best out of your solar. I will take a deeper look into the Arduino stuff and see if I can learn to do this. Failing that I might look for a pre-made switching st if one exists!
Paul

[Brian McGowan]

Paul,

I made what I did because there are no other alternatives out there that I can find. In my opinion the charge controller should be in charge of the system since it knows the state of the battery and the available power from the panels but they seem to have no interest at all in anything but charging the battery and choking down the panels to protect the battery when it is full.
I am happy to send you my code and what I did. I have an idea of what I would do to make this a saleable product that would allow any of the 8 relays to be used for either of the two possible uses with the ability to vary the timings as desired but I am not there yet so at the moment this is just a custom programmed thing for my system.
If you can code at all you will probably understand this. The software is free from Arduino and as I said I will send you my code so you can see what I did and alter it to suit your needs.
Are there things you have that can use excess power that are not time dependent and do not require your direct oversight or presence? Maybe a chest freezer that you can dump power into or a well being pumped into a big tank like my friend has?

[Laurie Forbes]

Have been following this thread with a lot of interest. It's a bit long so have not yet had time to read every post so the following might have been mentioned already.

Went to the Iron Edison web site and compared nickel-iron and lithium-iron battery cost:

For a 400Ah, 48V battery pack (19.2 KWhs capacity), nickel-iron was $15,200 while lithium-iron was $14,900. So, equivalent capacity lithium batteries appear to be less expensive (which surprised me). I'm guessing shipping cost would additionally be a lot less.

So then, if the above is correct, why would one go with the nickel-iron??

[Brian McGowan]

When I bought the nickel iron battery the lithium iron was not available. I am also not aware of the lifespan of the lithium iron type as I haven't done research because I am locked in with what I have at this time.
If you choose to do more research on the lithium iron type and eventually go with that I would be interested to hear about the information and experience you gather.

[Brian McGowan]

A quick glance at the Iron Edison website shows Lithium Iron has a projected lifespan of around 16 years so about twice what FLAs have and about 1/2 or less than Nickel Iron type.
Also the Lithium Iron are only available in 48 volt and I needed 12 volt.

[Brian McGowan]

On Tuesday 2/27 my system controller ran my inverter to dump excess energy into my house for 5 1/2 hours. That is the second time this year so far. Days are getting longer.

[Esteban DiMaria]

Hi All,

I installed a small NiFe battery bank this week.
Just for testing and experimenting.

I used 10 x TN200 from Henan Hengming. (12V system)
As charge controller I use Studer Variotrack with RCC02 remote control.
(Variotrack let's you change all charge paramenters individually)

I made the elektrolyte myself. It was not too bad. Just wear your eye protection;
Don't wear your best clothes. First I used a kitchen scale to weigh the needed amount of KOH flake per liter of destilled water. I used the supplied thermometer to stir
the KOH solution. While watching the temperature add the KOH flake to the water. I put the koh flake in three times. It dissolves really easy.

After that I let the kettle cool for several hours (it was around 65°C)
Then I added the Lioh powder. It is fine powder It takes a bit more effort to dissolve.
No heat is generated this time.

Using the supplied hydrometer I checked the specific gravity: it was Ok.

Filled up my cells, and they came right up with 1,2V.

Question: Henan Hengming specifies 20g of LioH power per liter of elektrolyte in their manual.
I still have around 100g of lioh powder left over...
What do you think should I add another 10g to each cell?

I find it difficult to find a good explanation of what the Lioh powder does:
- Is it for better efficiency: charge and discharge
- Is it for preventing Iron Poisoning
- Is it to reduce carbon build up?

I do consider to add float oil regarding the carbon build up issue.
(Chevron Capella WF 32 translates here to Fuchs Reniso KM 32)

I already bought a bottle of Fuchs Reniso KM32. I did a quick experiment in a watter bottle I dropped 30 ml of float oil
onto the water, and it stayed right on top. I did not mix with the water at all.

Hydrocaps seem a great idea too. (combining both float oil with Hydrocaps - not quite sure if that works?)

Greetings!

[Esteban DiMaria]

These are the supplied fill tools.

Here is a picture of the filling of the batteries.

[Paul Cahill]

Hi Brian, Baja and all other contributors to this thread.

So I am still in no man's land, entirely due to my lack of understanding/mind block on the issue of NiFe implementation and use. My 20 x 250ah units are still uncommissioned whereas the Pylontech Li batteries are performing well being driven by 12 panels (3180w) and the Goodwe 5048 EM inverter charge unit which has been running now since Jan 1. I am seriously considering reselling my NiFe units simply because additional Pylontech batteries are now available 40% cheaper than 6 months ago and my efforts to organise a secondary system for the NiFe units is going nowhere fast. The industry isn't there to fully support them in any sort of economical way. My only stumbling block is the idea of a secondary system would provide some security for failure in either system to maintain a supply in our off grid situation and therefore critical supply.

I looked at Arduino Brian but am totally out of my depth! I simply don't have the brain wiring necessary to tackle it and am neck deep in organising and building our new place for the next three years! but appreciate your earlier offer of coding.

What I need is a way of charging a 24v NiFe system, cheaply and simply. This seems an impossible ask given the lack of choice and simplicity of system offerings on the market. I may simply have to accept that a single system and the threat of failure is the price I will have to pay for daring to remain off-grid! Yes I have generator backup for a downright emergency but don't relish running it for weeks on end until replacement parts arrive whether a warranty or paid replacement. I can add 3 more Pylontechs for the price I paid for the NiFe units and double that for the current retail price of the NiFe's. The Pylontech system requires zero maintenance and are proving totally reliable.

If anyone can offer advice as to how I can keep my 'dream' alive and get my NiFe system up and running I am willing to give it one last shot. Otherwise, anyone can make me an offer for the NiFe batteries, I'm in SW France near Limoges, shipping is not really an option though.

It will pain me to give up the NiFe dream I once had, I don't have any doubt that the batteries are an excellent product and will do a great job but the ancillary equipment appears overpriced and lacking in choice and effectiveness (for me) which is a real pity.

Irrespective of what happens for me I wish everyone who has mastered the implementation and use of this type of system all the very best for a bright and continued future.

Kind regards, Paul Cahill

[Esteban DiMaria]

Hi Paul,

Just my 2 cents :)

I am using the Studer Variotrack and RCC02 remote with my NiFe batteries.

http://www.studer-innotec.com/en/products/variotrack-series/

You can set almost any charge parameter you like.
The variotrack can work in 12V 24V or 48V mode.
- You can set float voltage, absorb voltage, absorb duration.
- You can also set undervoltage/overvoltage .... and many more.
- It has two AUX contacts that you can hook up to.
It goes from around 9V to almost 17V
They are available in Europe without problem.
I used photovoltaik4all.de . it was one of the cheaper shops I could find.
Mind you they had to order it from Switserland: but after a few weeks it arrived.

The Inverter (extender) does have a specific version for 12/24/48V
Also: the same wide operating voltage range.
Can integrate grid or generator.
Also has aux contacts -> Can program aux contacts to react on events: soc (with BSP), grid, voltage, time clock or combination of these events.

If you had old KOH flake: my idea would be:
I would try to use it: If it is bad, hey you only lose the distilled water (cheap)
and you still learn from it.

But that's just my opinion! :)

PS/ I added my float oil!
Around 90ml per cell. How much? See a chart made by Saft for NiCad. Compared roughtly
by the same cell size.

Chevron Capella WF 32 = Fuchs Reniso KM 32
So I used the Fuchs Reniso KM 32

[Brian McGowan]

Best I can recommend is this charge controller for about $500

https://www.thesolarbiz.com/solar-charge-controllers/midnite-solar-classic-150-sl-charge-controller.html


and this inverter for around $600

https://theinverterstore.com/product/3000-watt-pure-sine-inverter-24-vdc-to-220230-vac-european/

$1100.00ish and you have your secondary system.

Brian

[Brian McGowan]

In other news about my system, I have my first ever 5.5kWh harvest in a day with my little 1.05kW set of panels. Would not be possible if the Arduino was not controlling the inverter to send excess power into the house. The charge controller would have been chocking the panels down long before I got to that point.
And yesterday I made 4 cups of coffee/tea, ran 3 loads of wash and the Arduino had the inverter putting power into the house for 6 hours on top of that for a total of 4.8kWh harvested that day and it was not a fully sunny day.

[Brian McGowan]

About a week ago I had a 5.8 kWh harvest. Largest ever in a day. Don't think I will make 6kWh. Also, I have 107kWh on my meter measuring what has been sent into the house. I know this is low because I have seen the meter stalled when power is being sent into the house and when I move the wheel it starts turning again.

[Brian McGowan]

Battery temperature is 88 degrees and I have seen 94 degrees in the garage. I am sure FLAs would be toast under these conditions.
Dump load controller is still working nicely.

I have a new thing to deal with. After I have used 100Ah or more out of the batteries at night and I am running the entertainment center which draws around 20 amps and the fridge kicks on it sometimes kicks the inverter off for low battery voltage which happens during the initial spike of the fridge kicking on surge. The surge is quick and over in about a second. I am wondering if it is worth it to get a set of 3000 farad "super caps" and attach them directly to the inverter battery inputs in parallel with the battery itself to help handle this startup surge. Once the fridge is running the draw is only 10 amps so the total draw is 30 amps. It's that initial surge when the fridge starts up that is the problem and only when the batteries are 20% or more discharged.

These caps I am looking at are 3000 farad @ 2.7 volts. To handle my battery voltage I would need 7 of them. They seem to run around $40 each for a total of $280.


Any thoughts or opinions would be greatly appreciated.

Brian

[Rob Beckers]

Brian, something not related to your capacitor question: What do you currently have as battery interconnect and inverter cables? I've seen lots of problems where inverters would kick off due to LVD that were traced back to wiring that was just too thin, and bad connections.

Do you have any idea how much current the fridge draws and for how long while starting? That would allow for some calculations about Voltage drop from discharging supercaps. You'd have to be careful hooking up the wiring to the batteries after installing that much capacity; that'll be a heck of a spark when they charge up!

-RoB-

[Brian McGowan]

I hope there is a picture of my setup here.
This only happens when I am more than 20% down in charge.
I am rough guessing the fridge draws 15 amps on the initial surge which tails off rapidly but to the batteries that is 150 amp surge on top of the 20-25 being drawn by the entertainment system and my laptop and other computer gear like the modem and so forth.
I use AWG2 throughout the battery circuit.
On the positive side there are three 250A fuses between the battery and the inverter. One right at the battery positive terminal, and a pair in the fuse block in the center bottom of the board.
On the negative side there is a 500A shunt for the vectron meter and a 200A shunt for my other meter for just the inverter circuit. The 200A shunt gives a 75mV drop at 200A.
I keep my terminals clean. I just moved the inverter about 8" to the left in preparation for adding another charge controller maybe.
I think the problem is the sudden surge drops the voltage under the lower threshold of the inverter for just a fraction of a second but that is enough.
If I add the caps I will charge then through a resistor before attaching them permanently so there is not such a huge surge.
You should be able to zoom in on this picture and see clearly everything I am doing. If not let me know and I can email the pic to you or take pics of specific items.

Brian

[Brian McGowan]

I would be interested in any calculations you may provide.

It would be generous to say there is 16 feet of wire total from the battery to the inverter and AWG2 has a resistance of .1563 ohms/1000ft so that means my total wire resistance is .0025008 ohms.
Granted there are connections and shunts and fuses but these are large and I keep them clean.

[Rob Beckers]

Hi Brian,

Nice battery interconnects! As long as the terminals are clean and tight those won't cause much Voltage drop. You're right about the .0025 Ohm for the inverter wires, though keep in mind that with a total surge of around 200A that causes a 0.5V instant drop. This assumes there's nothing else, which isn't true, so in reality such a surge would be nearer to 0.75V drop due to wiring/connections/etc.

I assume your inverter is not adjustable, so you can't simply set the LVD point a little lower?

For the supercaps, to avoid the surge, you'd need a setup like a resistor charging them (somewhat slowly), and a Schottky diode (re)connecting the caps to the inverter. The latter will cause its own Voltage drop, but you can keep that at around 0.6V with the right type.

By the way, regarding wire sizes, I tend to size by the NEC/CEC limits. That puts 2 AWG at 130A max, and I don't really use it much. For a 2kW inverter at 24V I'd normally use 1/0 or 2/0 AWG, for 3kW definitely 2/0 (all somewhat dependent on surge capacity of the inverter and wire lengths). For what it's worth...

-RoB-

[Brian McGowan]

Thanks Rob for your response and your compliment on the interconnects. I do what I can and am not unfamiliar to high power electronics. I may be able to up the wire gauge some but I am not convinced that is the problem. I only very rarely see more than 100A being drawn. Thanks also for the Schottkey diode and resistor idea. I will think about that. I was just going to charge the caps through a resistor before connecting them directly to the inverter terminals where the battery connects. What are your thoughts on using No-ox on all connections?

Before I get busy today I wanted to post the specs on my inverter.
I got this one in particular because it had a 17V high voltage shutoff so it would be able to start up even when my batteries were at full charge at 16.5V+. My other inverter had a 15.5V high voltage shutoff so failed all the time. This would not do for my Arduino controller to operate while I was not home. This arrangement so far has operated flawlessly and I am extremely pleased with it. I come home to find the inverter has been on for 4 -5 hours and as racked up another 1-2kWh on the meter which means that much I am not getting from the power company. This after running the inverter all night to supply things in the house for another 1-2kWh.
The low voltage shutoff is 10V so I must be getting down to that momentarily under the conditions I previously stated. I never have a problem if there is any sun shining at all. This is only at night when I am below 80% charge and I am drawing a steady load between 20-30A and the fridge kicks on. Also I should note if the entertainment center is not running the inverter supports the fridge kicking on all night and is still running when I get up in the morning and by then the sun is out and I am gathering power through the charge controller.
I really think the problem is the Nickel/Iron batteries cannot support the sudden current draw while maintaining the required voltage when discharged to that point. They have no problem doing it up to that point. That's why I was thinking about the caps. FLAs are probably more responsive in that respect.

I have no way to monitor such an instantaneous surge and voltage drop short of hooking my scope up to it and watching when the fridge kicks on. I can see what the battery voltage is when it is discharged that much though and maybe gather a few other bits of info. My current meters are all digital which means If the surge doesn't hit while I am watching and the sample doesn't get taken at that very nanosecond I won't get a reading. I might still have an old analog chart recorder in the basement that I could drag out and try to make work.

This is an ongoing science experiment for the good of the community so I will try to gather more data.
If you can think of anything you want me to try to monitor or capture let me know.


https://theinverterstore.com/product/3000-watt-industrial-grade-pure-sine-power-inverter/

Specifications:
Continuous output power: 3000 Watt
Surge power capability (peak power): 6000 Watt
DC input / operating voltage: 10.5-16 volts
Output voltage: 120 volts AC
Output voltage regulation: +/- 3%
Output wave form: pure sine wave
Output frequency: 50/60 Hz
Battery low voltage alarm: 10.5 +/- 0.5 volts
Battery low voltage shutdown: 10.0 v +/- 0.5 volts
No load power consumption: fan off <0.9 DC amps or fan on <1.37 DC amps
THD: <5%
Full load efficiency: 90%
1/3 load efficiency: 95%
No load minimum operating temperature: -4 degrees Fahrenheit
Full load maximum operating temperature: 176 degrees Fahrenheit (automatic shutdown)
GFCI resettable AC outlet
High input voltage shutdown: 17 volt
Low input voltage shutdown: 10 volt
Internal blade fuse protection
Dimensions:
Unit weight: 16 lbs.
Unit size L x W x H: 23 x 9 x 3.50 inches
Shipping weight: 21 lbs.
Shipping size L x W x H: 26 x 13.50 x 8.50 inches

[Dave Schwartz]

I would also look into the possibility of adding a hard-start capacitor to your fridge. This is a very popular item with air conditioners and domestic fridges in the RV world where generators or battery banks and inverters are used.

[Esteban DiMaria]

Hi,

I also faced the same problem, that our fridge had a high startup current.
To fix it, I added this pre-made module from Maxwell:

http://www.maxwell.com/products/ultracapacitors/16v-large-modules

It was cheaper to order the module, then to buy the caps seperate.
And then I still needed to construct a half decent case for them.

I added them parallell to the TN200 batteries. With a separate circuit breaker and disconnect switch. For the initial connect I charged them up from 0V to around 12V with
my 3A lab power supply. Connected fine.

Problem of high startup current solved.
Do keep in mind that the absolute max Voltage is around 17V for the capacitor pack.

Greetings

[Brian McGowan]

It has been a while since I checked in so I thought I'd give a status report.
I am putting them to the test.
It has been months since they were at full charge and probably 6 weeks or more since they were over 50% charged and for the last two weeks they are rarely over 40% charged.
Mother nature has been stingy with her energy and we have already had snow here.

[Brian McGowan]

So another quick update.
Still really beating on these batteries. The Victron AH meter I got has regularly been showing more than -700 amps so clearly that needs some adjusting or something as my battery pack is a 500Ah pack.
Also of interest. My arduino control system successfully shut down the least important low voltage disconnect, my cigarette lighter adapter in the garage which I plug my tool battery chargers into, when the voltage got down to the specified voltage for more then 5 minutes the other night while leaving the other two DC circuits running because their setpoint had not been reached. This was the first time since I installed it that I have seen this work and it was gratifying to see it work as designed. I noticed it was off when I plugged a battery in to charge and the charger did not light up. I left the battery plugged in and when the sun came up in the morning and the system started charging again and the voltage raised to the turn on set point for more than 5 minutes the circuit re-engaged and the tool battery charged. It was finished by the time I got out there in the morning.

[Brian McGowan]

Since I last posted I have made some improvements to my system.

A couple of months ago I replaced my flexmax 80 with a midnight solar Classic 150 which allowed me to finally bring out the last 2 BP175 panels so I have now deployed a total of 8 panels. This occurred right after a hurricane and I lived exclusively off this system for 2.5 days.

A couple of weeks ago I installed a 500 farad capacitor across the inverter input to help with the fridge surge when it turns on and the batteries are below 2/3 charged and I am running other stuff. I found the batteries were having trouble supplying that instantaneous surge alone and thought the big capacitor would help. I have not gotten to test that yet. It is made of 6 x 3volt 3000 farad capacitors in series so you end up with an 18 volt x 500 farad capacitor. I recall there was opinions about how to charge this capacitor initially. I gave it it's own fuse so to charge it I had a couple of very large 2.2 ohm resistors in series across the fuse connections without the fuse in there and I waited until nighttime so the battery voltage was around 13.4 volts which gives a current of around 3 amps. I let that go for a couple of hours until the current was less than 1 amp then I moved my connection to a single resistor for a couple more hours until there was no current and then I disconnected that arrangement and put the fuse in. I will let you know how that goes once I get a chance to run the battery down far enough to test.

That is all the improvements to date aside from I am trying to build kind of a pergola arrangement over my back porch so I can mount all 8 of those BP175s in one place in an organized manner instead of scattered around the house in pairs.
Beyond that, the batteries are still working just great.

Unrelated to this I have also installed a 3.96kW grid tied PV system on the roof. This seems to be doing fine and currently I am up by about 160kWh.

I made a quick video for the national solar tour I could share if there is interest.

Brian

[Tom Smith]

Hi,

Just curious if you ate still using NIFE batteries and looking for an update.

[Brian McGowan]

Hi Tom,

Yes still usong the NIFE batteries and still very happy with them.

Since I am here some updates.

In December I replaced my water heater with a heat pump one. I have it set to run.exclusively in.heat pump mode only. In this mode it draws only 1.51 amps at.240 volts. If I get a small 12v to 240v inverter i can.run this.from.my batteries. When I first moved in I was.spending about 10 kWh/day for hot water. I installed a drain water heat exchanger and.my power usage dropped by about 3.25kWh/day. Then I renovated my bathroom which is bak to back with the other bathroom and replaced the casr iron drain pipe with PVC and was able to measure 10 degree hotter water hitting the heat exchanger. Then the heat pump water heater and noow.the app for that says I am using about 1kWh/day to supply the same amount of hot water it was.costing me 10kWh/day before.
The idea of being able to supply hot water wbile the grid is down is very appealing.

Also a.couple of months ago I installed a Gree 12000BTU minisplit heat pump unit for.AC and heat. Until now I have been using 5000BTU window AC unit which drew 6.5amps at.120 volts. The mini split draws 1.91amps at.120 volts for more than 2.times.the.cooling and way quieter. The real reason I got it was for heating though. I amhoping to run it at the begining and end of my heating season to hopefully cut 200+ gallons.off of my 550 gallon.per year heating.oil usage. Last drop was a little more than 300 gallons at $4.69/gallon!!! It this saves me 200 gallons per year it will pay for itself in no time and make.me money thereafter.

[Tom Smith]

I am excited to hear you are having good luck with your batteries. It has been about 8 years now? Have you had to change the electrolyte yet?

I am going to put a 48 volt 200 amp hour NIFE battery bank on line this summer. Over the last year I have managed to piece together 21 Beutility free 250 amp hour and 20 Iron Edison 200 amp hour batteries. The 250 amp hour are 10 years old with the original electrolyte and still accept and hold a charge. I also received enough chemicals with them to do 2 electrolyte changes, hopefully it is still good. The 200 amp hour Iron Edisons are 4 years old and are actually 1.25 inches taller and 1.5 lbs heavier than the 250 amp hour BUF set?

For the balance of system I will be using an Exeltech XP1100 inverter, Midnite Classic 200,
and at this time 1800 watts of Solar. I have been using a Meanwell 60 volt 10 amp power supply to keep the batteries charged while assembling the system.

I too have battery sulphation issues and wanted to try these for the last decade and finally found some used ones at a reasonable price even if I have to do an electrolyte change out. It is nice to hear from an active user, the trend today is lithium iron or ion and I am not ready for them yet, too young of a technology for this keep it simple guy.

Thanks again for the update.

[Tom Smith]

One other thing I would like to add, the previous owner of the Beutility Free 250 amp hour batteries added a layer of I believe polypropylene beads to float on top of the electrolyte. I believe this was BUF answer to the mineral oil layer to prevent carbonation of the electrolyte. These batteries were cycled 5 days a week in his work shop and are 10 years old on a maintenance charge the last 7 months, hopefully I can get a year out of them before an electrolyte change.

[Tom Smith]

Seems I lost a previous post?
To summarize previous post: I purchased a set of 21 BUF 250 amp hour batteries and a set of 20 Iron Edison 200 amp hour batteries. I received enough chemicals for about two electrolyte changes, hopefully it is still good. The 200 amp hour Iron Edisons are 1.25" taller and 1.5 lbs heavier than the 250 amp hour BUF batteries? Seems odd.
Just nice to see there are others still using this technology when Lithium ion and iron are the latest and greatest.
I hope to have my system online shortly and am excited to learn and share information on this battery technology with others.

[Rob Beckers]

Tom, one of your posts ended up in the moderation queue. Not sure why, I can't see anything in there that would set off one of the rules that hold it back for moderation. I've posted it, but if you would like can remove it again (may be confusing now in this thread). Sorry for that!

P.S. Interesting to see that Nickel-Iron is holding up! I wonder how it compares to today's lithium-ion batteries (LiFePO4).

-RoB-

[Brian McGowan]

Hi Tom,
I checked back and my batteries went in service October of 2013 so about 8 years and 8 months. I don't feel like I am coming up on an electrolyte change but also don't know for sure how to tell. They are still performing well so I am not feeling any need to do a change. I have heard of various methods to stop carbonization with the mot popular being floating a layer of mineral oil on the surface of the electrolyte. I have never heard of the beads. I am doing none of these things.
Since tha additionnofnthe capacitor bank on the input of the inverter I have easily run the batteries below the 50% mark on a regular basis. If I see it's going to be sunny the next day i will run the batteries the night before to void using grid power.
My next project up hopefully is to build a sort of pergola over my back porch to hold solar panels and also provide shade over my back porch. I am going to reinstall my flexmax 80 so between that and the midnight solar classic 150 I will be able to have 7 x 390 watt panels, 4 on the classic and 3 on the flexmax so something around 2.4kW of realized solar power.
Today's little project is to run some 6" flexible duct from my port board in the window in my basement to the intake of my heat pump water heater. It is 67.5 degrees in the basement and it is 80 degrees outside. This should reduce the run time of the water heater so less energy used.
Brian

[Tom Smith]

Great to hear no electrolyte change needed yet. I may need to try the capacitor on the input of the inverter in the future, time will tell. Thank you for this thread as it seams to be the most unbiased I have found on the web, and thanks for the updates as well.
I plan to add to it in the future when I get our system online.

[Tom Smith]

I finally have our 48 volt NIFE system online. Its current configuration is 900 watt PV, Morningstar TS 45 MPPT and Exeltech XP 1100 watt inverter. Our typical evening/overnight use is around 1kwhr and the batteries are holding up great. Largest load is our well pump which is about 900 to 1000 watts and usually only runs for 1.5 to 2 minutes to charge our pressure tank.

With a flip of a couple of breakers I can put our old 12 volt 770 amp/hr lead acid on line which has 900 watt of PV, 60 amp PWM SCC and a Trace PS2512 inverter. This is our backup system while I build confidence in the NIFE system.

Would like to add I had to charge one of the 250 amp/hr NIFE's as it was reading .xx volts
I used a standard 6/12 volt automotive battery charger with a adjustable Variac AC power supply and slowly increased DC input voltage while monitoring current, voltage and battery temperature. This seems to have done the trick as I installed the battery and and it has ran fine in the system as its voltage has not sagged any lower than the others.

I had to program custom setpoints into the Morningstar as we are using 40 cells and the Exeltech inverter has a listed HVD of 62 volts, but it is more like 61volts so absorption is set at 60.8 volts.

Will update more in the future as more PV and generator backup is added.

[Lee Rust]

Hello... new member here.

I'm dipping my toes into PV with the acquisition of three original Edison cells for experimentation and education. In the seller's photos they look like they might be the A8 model and appear to be in fairly good external condition. They should be arriving within the next few days.

These reportedly were in service from 1946 until early 2022 and were still measuring 1.2 volts when they were retired, cleaned up and drained of electrolyte for shipping purposes. I've read that these cells should never be allowed to dry out, so I'm concerned about what to do to get them refilled they get here.

After studying many discussion threads and some of the original Edison literature, I've gotten the general idea that the electrolyte is a 20% solution of KOH and distilled water. I've also seen mention of additional LiOH and float oil plus other fine points.

Any suggestions about a practical way to get these Edisons back into condition? I do have some laboratory containers available, plus mixing, weighing and measuring equipment.

Thanks!

Lee Rust
Henrietta NY

[Tom Smith]

I do not know if this would help you or not but Iron Edison has a manual on its website that may help out.
Also, I hope this is OK to mention, Duda diesel sells smaller amounts of potassium hydroxide. I have never used their products but may in the future.
Good luck and post updates.

[Lee Rust]

Tom,

I looked at Duda's eBay site and checked out their 2 lb quantities of KOH. Thanks very much!

Lee Rust

[Lee Rust]

The three cells arrived and it turns out they are type A7, dating from 1930 and 1931. They're in pretty decent external shape. Two of them still read 0.25v between the terminals even though the electrolyte has been drained out. The third one meters just a little twinge. On all three I get the same voltage readings between the positive terminal and the steel case. Is this normal?

KOH should be arriving soon from Duda, but I'm still not sure about how much LiOH to add, if any.

[Tom Smith]

Iron Edison manual page 22 lists their recommended ratios. The original Edison manual states 21% potassium hydrate and a small percentage of lithium hydrate?

I will also be changing the electrolyte in one of my 250 amp hour cells shortly as the overcharge did not work and it lost again lost capacity after a dozen charge/ discharge cycles.