Leisure battery cut off device

[ditchcrawler]

1 hour ago, cuthound said:

 

Sounds about right.

 

At the dawn of my career, I had to give the telecoms batteries in my care a "conditioning cycle" every 2 years by discharging the battery at the 10 hour rate until the first cell reached 1.75 volts and then immediately recharging until the tail current and sg's had been stable for 3 consecutive half hourly readings. The total exercise used to take 24-26 hours on average.

And I bet you r battery lasted years doing that

[MtB]

3 minutes ago, Sea Dog said:

Do any amongst us have those?

 

No, and the most puzzling thing is why not, given they seem to be the perfect solution.

 

I think it is possibly because they have simply not been commercialised and sold here in the UK until very recently. 

 

 

 

 

[cuthound]

21 minutes ago, ditchcrawler said:

And I bet you r battery lasted years doing that

 

Yup, 25 years plus, they were proper batteries, a single cell 2 volt in a wooden box lined with lead, in which the plates were immersed. Similar to the image below.

 

Each plate could be cut from the group bars, inspected,  and if necessary replaced. Different capacity batteries used the same plates, but had more in parallel, from about 500Ah up to 15,050Ah per cell.

 

From 1980 onwards they were replaced with VRSLA's which lasted 3-10 years but never needed topping up  (which was donever with a 2 gallon bucket and de-mineralised water every week).

Edited November 7, 2018 by cuthound
Spillung

[Alan de Enfield]

1 minute ago, cuthound said:

............and demi realised water...…..

Sound like interesting stuff - anything like Demi Moore ?

[cuthound]

59 minutes ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

 

No, and the most puzzling thing is why not, given they seem to be the perfect solution.

 

I think it is possibly because they have simply not been commercialised and sold here in the UK until very recently. 

 

 

 

 

 Indeed, technological advances are publicised very early in their lifecycle and can take decades to  develop into something that can be productionised into a viable commercial product.

 

Hydrogen fuel cell powered cars springs to mind. I remeber reading about them when I was at college in the early 1970's,  several manufacturers have produced working prototypes, but as yet they are not a commonly available alternative to diesel, petrol or battery powered cars.

48 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

Sound like interesting stuff - anything like Demi Moore ?

 

Bluddy Spillchucker!  

 

Perhaps I should replace it with Demi Moore, at least she would look good whilst mangling my words. ?

Edited November 7, 2018 by cuthound
To unmangle the effects of autocorrect.

[Alan de Enfield]

19 minutes ago, cuthound said:

 I reme beryl eating about them when I was at college in the early 1970's,  

 

Quote

Bluddy Spillchucker!  

 

 

Come on then - who was Beryl ?

Edited November 7, 2018 by Alan de Enfield

[cuthound]

22 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

Come on then - who was Beryl ?

 

Bluddy spillchucker,  it seems to add words beginning with last least letter of a word to the end of random words, probably immediately after I have pressed the send button ?

 

I have no idea who Beryl is, perhaps she was hoping to audition for a job proof reading my posts. 

[blackrose]

10 hours ago, Robbo said:

The BMV also has audible alarms as well as a relay output.  If the OP just wants to be notified when the batteries are low then this should be used.   The battery protect device I linked too is really for protecting the battery from serious undercharging when something is amiss not for day 2 day stuff.

Yes my BEP battery monitor also has an alarm you can set at whatever SoC you want. I never bothered with it so I completely forgot about that. It has alarms that can me set for low or high voltages too. The SoC tends to drift so it's not a function I really use anyway. I just look at DC amps in/out of the domestics and voltage on 3 banks. For SoC I use my smartgauge.

Edited November 7, 2018 by blackrose

[dor]

6 hours ago, cuthound said:

 

Yup, 25 years plus, they were proper batteries, a single cell 2 volt in a wooden box lined with lead, in which the plates were immersed. Similar to the image below.

 

Each plate could be cut from the group bars, inspected,  and if necessary replaced. Different capacity batteries used the same plates, but had more in parallel, from about 500Ah up to 15,050Ah per cell.

 

From 1980 onwards they were replaced with VRSLA's which lasted 3-10 years but never needed topping up  (which was donever with a 2 gallon bucket and de-mineralised water every week).

In the early '60s I kept a few lizards.  My father acquired from work a glass "accumulator case".  It was about 3ft long by about 18" wide by about 2ft high.  It was moulded from a single piece of glass and wasn't optically smooth like aquarium glass but served its purpose as a vivarium.

 

I wonder now what sort of battery it was and how they were used.

[cuthound]

9 minutes ago, dor said:

In the early '60s I kept a few lizards.  My father acquired from work a glass "accumulator case".  It was about 3ft long by about 18" wide by about 2ft high.  It was moulded from a single piece of glass and wasn't optically smooth like aquarium glass but served its purpose as a vivarium.

 

I wonder now what sort of battery it was and how they were used.

 

Was it something like this?

.

If so they were used for smaller power plant back up and UPSs until VRSLA's took over from 1980.

 

[ditchcrawler]

1 hour ago, dor said:

In the early '60s I kept a few lizards.  My father acquired from work a glass "accumulator case".  It was about 3ft long by about 18" wide by about 2ft high.  It was moulded from a single piece of glass and wasn't optically smooth like aquarium glass but served its purpose as a vivarium.

 

I wonder now what sort of battery it was and how they were used.

They were quite popular when I was a kid,

[dor]

1 hour ago, cuthound said:

 

Was it something like this?

.

If so they were used for smaller power plant back up and UPSs until VRSLA's took over from 1980.

 

A bit bigger than that.  They came from a Mullards (part of Phillips) research lab.  Probably used as controlled power supplies, or maybe specific equipment bakup.

[cuthound]

1 hour ago, dor said:

A bit bigger than that.  They came from a Mullards (part of Phillips) research lab.  Probably used as controlled power supplies, or maybe specific equipment bakup.

 

I couldn't find any images of the Chloride cells I was familiar with, but they ranged from 100Ah to 2000Ah, the largest being about waist height. 

[jonathanA]

Takes me back .... as an apprentice I had to don leather apron, gloves and goggles to

top up batteries like that. And switch them from float to charge at regular intervals too. 

[roland elsdon]

We have an adjustable battery disconnect on our fridge. Its designed for the australian rv market and has a range of disconnects and connect voltages. Its limited to i think 12 amps . I have it set on load to turn off at 12.1 , and to off load back on at 12.4 . The only time its worked was when i put all the lights the fridge on at the same time and then hit the gulper and the water pump. That tested its operation.

[Tony Brooks]

3 minutes ago, roland elsdon said:

We have an adjustable battery disconnect on our fridge. Its designed for the australian rv market and has a range of disconnects and connect voltages. Its limited to i think 12 amps . I have it set on load to turn off at 12.1 , and to off load back on at 12.4 . The only time its worked was when i put all the lights the fridge on at the same time and then hit the gulper and the water pump. That tested its operation.

If this is a 12V  fridge I hope it can cope with 70 amp plus surge loads. If not the voltage dip on start up could cause it to trip in the middle of the starting surge current.

[ditchcrawler]

2 hours ago, Tony Brooks said:

If this is a 12V  fridge I hope it can cope with 70 amp plus surge loads. If not the voltage dip on start up could cause it to trip in the middle of the starting surge current.

If it designed for the job I would hope the tripping was slugged to account for very short dips like that

[Iain_S]

On 06/11/2018 at 23:15, Alan de Enfield said:

A couple of years ago we were moored up close to a boat whose engine kept starting, running 15-20 minutes and stopping - and hour or so later it started up again ……….. repeat.

 

It turned out that somehow there was a voltage sensor that was connected to the engine starter - when it sensed the voltage on the leisure batteries drop to a pre-set level it started the engine until it sensed a pre-set 'higher' voltage and switched the engine off.

No 8 to 8 rules for him - the boat decided when it would start the engine.

 

I think the OP would be interested in something like that - even takes away the inconvenience of having to get out of your chair to press the 'start' button.

Sounds like a really badly designed system ?

Quick charge, which will have done little more than apply a surface charge, then let the discharged battery sit there until that dissipates. An ideal method of killing batteries, to say nothing of the accelerated engine wear from repeated (almost) cold starts.

 

 

[Alan de Enfield]

3 minutes ago, Iain_S said:

Sounds like a really badly designed system

That's Gin palaces for you.