Old Batteries for an Old Boat?

[David Mack]

These would look good in a trad engine room.

 

[MtB]

Wow, transparent cases so you can see the sulphation!!

[billh]

Small Telephone Exchange batteries, 2volt 300AH. Excellent long life , easy to top up. But, very vulnerable to physical damage to the plastic cases which are quite thin and the shape of them makes it a bit awkward to secure properly. Not entirely suited for boats, they are meant to stand on shelves  in a room that doesn't rock about. I have used them in a boat but removed them for the reasons stated. 

[X Alan W]

Assume they are rated at 2 volts making a 24 volt battery

[mrsmelly]

I thought  " Trads " were pulled by horses and had oil lamps?

[cuthound]

15 hours ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

Wow, transparent cases so you can see the sulphation!!

 

These are the type of batteries i cut my teeth on.  Came in a range of capacities from 100Ah to 600Ah

 

Only after charging the battery can you see if its sulphated. With a fully charged healthy battery the positive plate is a chocolate brown cour and the negative plate is grey.

 

If it is heavily sulphated charged battery or healthy flat battery, both plates are grey.

 

The main advantage of glass or clear polycarbonate cases is you can see the amount of material shed from the plates, or "trees" (caused by impurities in the topping up water) bridging plates and causing shorts.

 

The really large cells were in open topped, wooden boxes, where a dealing stick could be pushed between the plates to remove trees, and individual plates could be cut out and new ones lead welded back in.

 

 

[AMModels]

As a kid I remember the side yard of my nan and grandads garden being full of batteries, about 3ft long by a foot wide black and very heavy, they were always covered with a tarp. Would these be old lorry batteries? There were probably ten or so of them I think they came off Vulcan when she was on dock and never went back on when sold.

[Derek R.]

Couldn't say, but milk floats had big batteries.

[MtB]

2 minutes ago, Derek R. said:

Couldn't say, but milk floats had big batteries.

 

Ate milk float batteries the same as forklift batteries?

 

In fact why are forklift batts not used more commonly in boats? Or are these exactly the same thing as ‘full traction batteries’?

[zenataomm]

How are you going to get two bikes in an engine 'ole alongside all those crappy old batteries?

[alan_fincher]

6 minutes ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

In fact why are forklift batts not used more commonly in boats? Or are these exactly the same thing as ‘full traction batteries’?

 

Although lead acid may still be used in such applications I get the impression lithium-ion is incrasingly the norm.

 

As  I understand it, (which is not very much, so I'm happy to learn!), charging li-ion requires complex electronics, including monitoring various parameters whilst charging.

 

I guess cost plays a very major part.

[bizzard]

The old 1950's Ford Thames Cost Cutter diesel lorriy's had one huge square 6v battery mounted between the drivers and passengers seats, behind the gear lever.

[MtB]

2 minutes ago, bizzard said:

The old 1950's Ford Thames Cost Cutter diesel lorriy's had one huge square 6v battery mounted between the drivers and passengers seats, behind the gear lever.

 

Didn’t it get in the way of engaging the gears??

[bizzard]

5 minutes ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

 

Didn’t it get in the way of engaging the gears??

Sometimes if the brakes were applied to sharply.

[MtB]

Nice!! Does it have ABS and cruise control??

[bizzard]

5 minutes ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

Nice!! Does it have ABS and cruise control??

Built in ABS, worn wonky drums. 35 mph limit.  They vibrated terribly, you got out shaking like a gibbering idiot. The petrol version was much smoother and faster.

[cuthound]

1 hour ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

 

Ate milk float batteries the same as forklift batteries?

 

In fact why are forklift batts not used more commonly in boats? Or are these exactly the same thing as ‘full traction batteries’?

 

Yes, they are traction batteries, so happy to be almost fully discharged and still give 1000's of cycles use.

 

When we had our last shareboat, a co-owner was telling me about a boat he had seen which had four clift batteries, which apparently were the bees knees.

 

Took me a while to realise that he had misheard ?

[MtB]

Did the boat have four candles too? ?

[Derek R.]

4 hours ago, bizzard said:

Built in ABS, worn wonky drums. 35 mph limit.  They vibrated terribly, you got out shaking like a gibbering idiot. The petrol version was much smoother and faster.

Confirmed! Drove one around the yard at Chessington - shake you to pieces. But a petrol engined one (ex-military wireless van) was quite a different animal. Once the crash box was mastered, fun to drive.

[Iain_S]

9 hours ago, bizzard said:

Built in ABS, worn wonky drums. 35 mph limit.  They vibrated terribly, you got out shaking like a gibbering idiot. The petrol version was much smoother and faster.

Was that because it had circular brake drums?

[ditchcrawler]

11 hours ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

 

Ate milk float batteries the same as forklift batteries?

 

In fact why are forklift batts not used more commonly in boats? Or are these exactly the same thing as ‘full traction batteries’?

Probably the same reason new boats are fitted with re labled cranking batteries pushed under the deck on the swim where you can't maintain them, or fit decant instrumentation so you know when to recharge or stop charging.

[Derek R.]

 

12 hours ago, alan_fincher said:

 

Although lead acid may still be used in such applications I get the impression lithium-ion is incrasingly the norm.

 

As  I understand it, (which is not very much, so I'm happy to learn!), charging li-ion requires complex electronics, including monitoring various parameters whilst charging.

 

I guess cost plays a very major part.

 

My battery powered drill has lithium ion batteries, and charging is taken care of automatically from the charger in a matter of 20 minutes or so. Effective piece of kit, unless you have some recalcitrant concrete drilling to do, then it's back to mains power.

 

Lead acid batteries favour trickle charging. Pump too much in too quickly and plates begin to suffer.

[Jen-in-Wellies]

If you really wanted a battery that looks old style for a suitable boat then there are ones made for the vintage car and lorry restoration people that would look right.

https://www.shieldbatteries.co.uk/applications/classic-car.html

You could use it to listen to Winston Churchill speeches on your cats whisker radio.

 

Jen

Edited June 18, 2018 by Jen-in-Wellies

[nebulae]

I remeber driving one of those Ford lorries for miles in third gear,looking for another gear. The diesel was a Fordson Major engine,the V8 petrol was from a Ford Pilot car.