David Bowling's Continuous Charging Device

[Dbowling]

The third battery serves a purpose. It provides a potential difference to run current through the motor from high 24 volt side to low (bad battery) side with minimal losses except heat and friction. I mistakenly put in here a fact that was about the motor, not battery three, and have edited it out. For those who already read it. Sorry, my mistake. Trying to type while my godson was running around, and I am babysitting.


DAve

[Hoppy]

I have been thinking about this. Since I have a two channel scope, why don't I simply connect one channel to each of the primary batteries. It will show the voltage on the battery at the bottom of the screen. The dead batteries remain dead, and the buffer battery remains flat at whatever voltage it was when you started the system. So if the motor is running for many hours or days, where does the power come from if those primaries do not change in voltage, or go up? I can scope the voltage in the dead batteries and the buffer battery with my OTHER scope, and though I don't have enough scopes to have one on every battery, I can scope beginning and ending voltages in a run cycle. Would this be sufficient? It would seem to me that a scope would be far more accurate than a cheap battery tester would be.


Dave

A good battery tester / analyser is not cheap. A scope will only give you voltage readings, which will not tell you the capacity at the start and end of the test run. You need to have SG readings and / or capacity readings for both of your good batteries. Voltage readings will not give you the info you need. Plot out the full discharge voltage curves for your good batteries and look at them carefully to see why voltage readings alone cannot easily tell you what capacity you have lost over a given time period.

[markdansie]

@ Hoppy
one failing and I do not have the answer to regards measurement. None of the instruments available can measure improvements to battery capacity through de-sulfation and other changes that may occur, and the impacts it has on the lifespan of the battery. Hate to be the party pooper.
Old batteries can have their life and performance improved, new batteries often have their lifespan reduced.(common observation by other experimenters)
Mark

[profitis]

no no @markdansie.a specific gravity test will reveal exactly how much power is being burned,regardless of surface area changes.we demand a highly sensitive specific gravity test before and after runs.

[Hoppy]

@ Hoppy
one failing and I do not have the answer to regards measurement. None of the instruments available can measure improvements to battery capacity through de-sulfation and other changes that may occur, and the impacts it has on the lifespan of the battery. Hate to be the party pooper.
Old batteries can have their life and performance improved, new batteries often have their lifespan reduced.(common observation by other experimenters)
Mark

Mark,

I was careful in suggesting that the 'good' batteries are capacity and SG measured to show David that there is capacity removed despite the terminal voltages showing little drop. The bad sulfated battery would be rejected on the analyser anyway of course. However, as Profitis points out, SG readings taken on the bad battery before and after a test run will give a good indication of its state of charge.

You are correct about new batteries that can suffer life reduction through radiant / spike conditioning. This is especially the case with SLABS which have pasted lead plates, where the plates can be damaged by  aggressive conditioning.