Bad corrosion on battery terminal

[Mike90250]

Sadly, the Round Cells appear to be rated for 150 cycles

And, that block of base 64, is an animated .GIF movie of a still photo of a string of Round Cells.

[FloridaSun]

Sadly, the Round Cells appear to be rated for 150 cycles

150 cycles at 30% discharge, 100 cycles at 50%. Useless for RE but what interests me is
"Unique grid design results in cell capacity that increases with age – no de-rating required"
now how does/would/could that work??

[Sunking]

1. Did you try to put one of your custom smileys into your post or are you trying to source malware? (There is very large block of text which is supposedly a base64 encoded jpeg image which is not displaying anything in my browser.)

No I just tried to include a picture of the round cell, and did not work. So I used a link to the product brochure. The battery was originally developed by Western Electric exclusively for Ma Bell. After W.E. It was made by ATT, then Lucent, then C%D, and today GE

2. Those round cells are impressive. The idea is that since the plates do not have to support themselves you can use the soft pure lead?

Correct, if you look closely the plates are stacked like pancakes

. 40 year life in Float service. Are they any good at all in deep discharge service?

Not worth a dam in cycle service. As I stated earlier they were made exclusively for telephone offices. Like any stationary battery made for emergency standby service they are not made to be cycled. In a perfect world they are never used other than to filter out rectifier ripple. Just abou tevery telephone office in the world has large onsite generators, typically two large diesel generators for redundancy (ie 2 units of 2 Mw). Power goes off and the batteries keep the switching and transport equipment going. Generator starts up and then takes over. Batteries are typically sized to run the equipment for 4 to 8 hour sin the event the genny does not start initially.

So since most telephone offices have dual power company service feeders like hospitals, and 2 redundant generators, the batteries are are never cycled so they do not need to have a lot of cycle capacity. They just need to be able to charge and discharge at high C rates.

4. Do you have to do periodic electrolyte drain and replacement to get that life or do you just top them off with distilled water every now and then for 40 years?

No never. What is done is capacity testing every 5 years. I have seen 50 year old Round Cell batteries test at 85% rated capacity. Most Telco companies replace when the reach 70 to 75% capacity. Or in th ecase of sealed batteries just replace every 5 years. Telco battery plants get their own special room all to themselves that are environmentally controlled vaults. They se tin 76 degree rooms with 40% humidity their whole lives and never do much of anything. I have built hundreds of battery plants using about every manufacture you can name. Some plants are as large as 35,000 AH @ -48 volts. Cell sites use 24 volts and may go up to 2000 to 3000 AH. Those -48 volt 35,000 AH batteries have a rectifier plant of 16,000 amps of which up to 10,000 to operate equipment, and 6000 amps to recharge if ever needed.

[SunEagle]

...

Correct, if you look closely the plates are stacked like pancakes....

That is similar to the way the Optima batteries are built but they are designed for deep cycling.

[Sunking]

That is similar to the way the Optima batteries are built but they are designed for deep cycling.

Optima are AGM pure lead Jelly Roll construction right? That is what makes their internal resistance so dang low and efficient.

From Optima FAQ:

The OPTIMA^® SPIRALCELL TECHNOLOGY^® provides many features not available in ordinary batteries, such as:

• More plate surface, closer plate spacing and the use of high-purity lead. RESULTING IN: Low internal resistance. This low resistance gives you more power in a smaller box, the ability to recharge much faster, and higher and cleaner voltage characteristics during discharge
• Immobilized plates under compression (locked in place). RESULTING IN: Improved vibration resistance, no shedding of active paste material, reduced gradual loss of power and capacity as the battery ages. This gives you a battery that lasts longer and performs better throughout its life.

FWIW I would never recommend Optima for cycle service unless there are very special circumstances. They are just too expensive and there are much lower cost alternatives like Concorde which have the same low resistance but built for cycle service. Optima is pretty much a cranking battery and needs a vehicle alternator. Concorde pretty much invented the AGM battery for military aircraft. They are second to none in the AGM market. Optima is good, but not better than Concorde.

[SunEagle]

Optima are AGM pure lead Jelly Roll construction right? That is what makes their internal resistance so dang low and efficient.

From Optima FAQ:

The OPTIMA^® SPIRALCELL TECHNOLOGY^® provides many features not available in ordinary batteries, such as:

• More plate surface, closer plate spacing and the use of high-purity lead. RESULTING IN: Low internal resistance. This low resistance gives you more power in a smaller box, the ability to recharge much faster, and higher and cleaner voltage characteristics during discharge
• Immobilized plates under compression (locked in place). RESULTING IN: Improved vibration resistance, no shedding of active paste material, reduced gradual loss of power and capacity as the battery ages. This gives you a battery that lasts longer and performs better throughout its life.

FWIW I would never recommend Optima for cycle service unless there are very special circumstances. They are just too expensive and there are much lower cost alternatives like Concorde which have the same low resistance but built for cycle service. Optima is pretty much a cranking battery and needs a vehicle alternator. Concorde pretty much invented the AGM battery for military aircraft. They are second to none in the AGM market. Optima is good, but not better than Concorde.

They are great batteries to be used on boats and portable systems. I use one of the Blue Top D27M for my small portable solar generator. It was a lot more expensive but can handle the bumps when I roll it around.

[Sunking]

They are great batteries to be used on boats and portable systems.

Yes good choice for boats, RV, cars, and trucks with high power systems. Good examples are cars with competition grade stereos, trucks with electric winches, low riders with hydraulics, or vehicle with diesel engines. All of my company trucks have Optima aux batteries in them.

[PNjunction]

Just for fun, I'd love to know how much one of those round cells would cost a consumer if they were actually available in single units.

I like the pure-lead's like the Optimas, Odyssey's , Hawkers, etc for their ability to maintain a higher voltage under heavy load. I run some Optimas for my fun stuff, but if I had to do it all over again, since I normally don't pull more than .1C, that higher-voltage feature is not really put to the test, and a lead-calcium type like an East-Penn / Deka would do just fine and be cheaper. Although hammering the pure-leads with 1-5C rates is fun, I must admit - something you can't do with a standard agm.

[Sunking]

Just for fun, I'd love to know how much one of those round cells would cost a consumer if they were actually available in single units.

About $400/Kwh. A 2 volt 1600 AH cell runs around $1300 each. The public can buy them as GE does not care who buys them.

[inetdog]

... The public can buy them as GE does not care who buys them.

Although I would not be surprised if there were minimum order and shipping issues.

By comparison, more common RE deep cycle batteries, golf cart batteries (less ideal) and cranking batteries (not good at all) are more in the ballpark of $100 per kWh.

[Sunking]

By comparison, more common RE deep cycle batteries, golf cart batteries (less ideal) and cranking batteries (not good at all) are more in the ballpark of $100 per kWh.

Good 5 year RE batteries are $200 to $240/Kwh. Check prices on Rolls 5000 series. For $100/Kwh you get Wally World 1 year battery.

[Silvertop]

No-Ox-Id special is what you want to use. You can melt and hot dip cables but not recommended as it applies too much product.

Absolutely, I used this for years as an electrician in Colorado especially back when Aluminum was in......