Nickel cell information

[Mark Cunningham]

Hello,

I looked for an "Introduce yourself" thread and did not easily find it. So I will introduce myself here. Admin's and Mod's please be gentle.

I am a retired engineer. Living in an Earthbag dome the wife and I built. In a remote corner of the Philippines.

I also built and installed a 4.2K, 48vdc, active tracking, off grid system. All Outback gear. Fantastic equipment. We have been off-grid for 6 years now. Before that I supported a grid-tied system in Samoa for 7 years.

I currently support a 920ah bank of 33 year old Edison/Saft flooded pocket plate NiCd cells. After overhaul they had over 75% of their original capacity.

My first battery bank was FLA. It died within 18 months. Ambient heat, long dark monsoon season, and pond water masquerading in a bottle as distilled.

I have watched and participated in the Nickel cell forum wars for many years now. Until it became boring to me.

'It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.' - Upton Sinclair

For us Nickel cells are the only cells robust enough to take the heat of the tropics. The only chemistry strong enough to survive the monsoon months of standing discharged.

We can get re-agent grade KOH and LiOH very cheaply in comparison to the States. So electrolyte changes are not a big expensive deal.

As best as I can see Lithium banks suffer from most of the environmental weaknesses of FLA. They add a layer of BMS that can fail.

For us the biggest challenge has been availability of materials. Especially quality materials.

I have made my own 4.0 cables out of 10 ga. THHN and garden hose. I have been forced to make blade switches out of flattened copper pipe. Cast custom ceramic insulators. Cut bushings from bucket lids.

Here is part of the information I have dug up over the years.

Most of this, especially the LCDW and titration instructions should be applicable to NiFe.

I am interested in talking with any current Nickel cell users. Posers, Pogues, Manual Ninja's, and Warranty Rangers need not apply.

I have interests in Bio-gas and Methane digesters. Particularly in building a manual gas compressor. But that should be in another thread.

Hope this helps someone.

Thank you

[Sam De Prins]

I might apply then, since I have a shop running offgrid on Chanhong NF400-s',
and as a Studer inverter dealer, servicer and programmer I have quite some experience with NiFe cells.

We delivered several systems and I have loads of data from running systems.

In the old days I used to work with Outback Fx Mx range too, but lately I quit all other brands and gotr married with Studer-Innotec.

Twice a year I also give a lecture about programming and using NiFe's on XT's in Switzerland.

so.. shoot?

greetings from Belgium
http://www.studer-innotec.com/fr/references/brugge,-stafco-5561

[Mark Cunningham]

I might apply

Thank you very much for the response.

Pick one of your installs and tell me about it please. In return I'll tell you in detail about mine.

I am very interested in hearing your opinion of NiFe. Your using the ChangHong cells. What do you think of them. Any complaints?

Have you ever titrated your electrolyte? If so how do you do it? What indicators do you use?

Do you mix your electrolyte? What purities of KOH and LiOH do you use? How many grams of this or that per liter of distilled water?

What is your preferred charging routine?

For me I pretty much just opened up and run bulk charge all day long. Set my absorb voltage very high and very long. So the inverter does not meet it and stays in bulk.

That causes me to use a little more water, but I've noticed that I get a more complete charge.

Thank again for your time.

[Brian McGowan]

Hi Mark,
So you found my other thread but I wanted you to know I saw this one also. My reasons for using these batteries are much the same as yours. FLAs are simply not capable of dealing with energy the mother nature wants to dole it out and I had to find an alternative so decided to be a test subject and give these a whirl.
My batteries live in the garage which is attached to the house but there is no environmental controls so it sees pretty much the full swing of temperature for the US north east. I also have a "dark" season where the batteries may not see full charge for many weeks at a time causing sulfating issues in FLAs. They don't want to be charged or discharged to fast or slow and don't like to be far off an optimal temperature so I just kept killing FLAs.
Anyway you found the other thread and discussion can proceed apace there.

Brian

[Mark Cunningham]

Hello,

Sorry for the delay. I've been playing "Wack -A- Mole" with various problems.