Batteries and New Battery Technologies

Hi Porta, very interesting article in the Wikipedia, special that part of replacing batteries. Although, the probability to have a stationary located flywheel performing dangerous, apart of material fatigue, is small. Wonder why Volvo placed their development for series car production on hold. Probably they could not make it safe enough during crashes. But for batteries in a solar array system, it should be ideal. Long life, like super capacitors, fast charging and discharging. Bert

 

I think super caps are the very best of all for sheer speed. There would be momentum and flywheel stress issues for instantaneous charging/discharging a flywheel for example, and this affects lifetime. Would have to study the $ cost per KW over lifetime compared to cheap lead wet cell batteries for solar apps. If you could instantly store the energy of single lightning bolt in super caps without having them self discharge- be done for a year

P.

 

Yes, 10 million Volt x 40.000 Ampere bursts of up to 15 per second, in average a 1/2 second continuous, gives you 10.000.000 x 40.000 x 1/2 second = 200.000.000/3600 = 55.000 Kwh . That will power my boat for a while. Bert

 

Flipping hell, I will be 78, before I can buy one of those one's.

http://www.gizmag.com/organic-flow-...ail&utm_term=0_65b67362bd-91547f20e7-90251602

It would be the same as having a large diesel tank on board of my boat. I am not very fond of diesel tanks. I wonder what kind of regulations will then be needed. Fire? , explosion? Liquid movement, because of waves ? whatever.
Bert

 

Reference Link & Chyrsler's Patriot Project Failure

Thanks for that link Portal, I had forgotten about it.

On those pages I found reference article #16, Ian Sharp's accounting for the failure of the project, at least a principle reason. I posted that over on my Flywheel Energy posting as I don't remember seeing this reference.

I've been interested in flywheel development ever since my college days (early 60's), both for cars and boats (aux generator replacement I suggested back in the 1970's)

Brian

 

Hi, Brian:
I'm guessing boat applications would be more limited (except: ferries) compared to autos because of a more intermittent cycle of use for boats compared almost continuous daily use of cars.

Newer materials may evolve to allow higher speeds in vaccum for flywheels and lighter failure shielding. Would be nice to have the flywheel failure producing an instantaneous dust (no chunks) which would be easy to contain.

For longer term energy storage, the flywheel self discharge rate would seem to be less than supercaps but higher than lithium batteries...

Cheers.

Porta

 

Lithium-Sulfur Batteries Show Potential to Extend Electric Vehicle Range

....excerpt

http://powerelectronics.com/blog/lithium-sulfur-batteries-show-potential-extend-electric-vehicle-range?NL=ED-04&Issue=ED-04_20140317_ED-04_800

 

Hi Brian, I am a little concerned. My Lithium battery (LifeP04) has done nearly 1000 cycles and is still in a good condition. Having a battery popped at 100 cycles for a Lithium battery is suspect. If the test was 1000 discharges/charges and then 4000 dis/recharges with a hybrid system, I would say , we have a winner. I think they have to re-test and maybe even re-design their experimental gadget. 100 cycles for a Lithium battery is extremely low.
Bert

 

Hi, Bert. Good to hear you have good luck with your batteries. Lithium batteries come in slighly different quality of chemistries and even the LiFePO4 can be tempermental as to cycle life. If you go below about 70% discharge, the cycles are cut way back, and the lower you discharge, the worst it gets. There are also storage, charging and rate discharge protocols which can extend cycle as indicated in the link below. One of my cordless tool batteries only showed 82 cycles on the chip when it died, despite careful pampering. China products vary greatly in quality. Handy reference: http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/lithium_based_batteries

Porta

 

Hi Porta,
I am very surprised. A lithium battery is known for more deep cycling and charging than other batteries. Your own link made references to 500 minimum
for a number of different type of Lithium batteries. Sure they had like you a dud battery and they made the wrong conclusions from it. Bert

 

There is a reason for this - poor design and understanding.
I dont know what brand you had, but its likely the same reason described below, a mistake made by a market leader.

When Makita first released their lithium battery powered tools, they did not include any kind of protection for over discharging them, and the subsequent damage this does to the lithium chemistry battery. So the tradesmen would keep trying to drill that last hole, or put those last few screws in, the tool giving its last gasp of torque, before climbing down the ladder to go and swap batteries or simply throw it in the tool box and leaving it there, completely discahrged for several days... This is the worst thing you can do to kill a lithium battery besides overcharging it...

Nowadays, all the high quality brand name batteries have a PCB inside the plastic battery housing, which is a small peice of circuitry that cuts off the battery from the power tool once the voltage falls below a preset level. So now you will notice that modern high quality lithium tools run normal throughout their discharge cycle before completely and suddenly stopping when the battery needs recharging.

This important feature enables the lithium batteries to last much longer than any of the previous NiCad`s or NiMH`s we had before. My newest lithium tools get used everyday and have nearly 2 years on the batteries. They still perform like new...

 

Hi, Groper

Yes, but I presently have recent cordless tool batteries from RYOBI, Toro, and older from Bosch (good) and Milwaukee (failure-50% max). None have an over discharge chip in the battery itself. Even though most have an LED fuel guage, I use a separate in line voltmeter to pamper, and not to go too low. These are used with their original cases and chargers for powering a tiny fishing pontoon as well as cordless tools. Measured on the main drive battery, average use of 2X per week to 70% discharge-then switch to a spare. Wonder if your primary batteries went until the chip stops them everytime for 2 years...

Even with recent improvements, high discharge rates, deep discharges to cutoff, hot temperatures, and full capacity charges all diminish cycle life, see above link. Lithiums are more sensitive than nickel systems to moisture, especially salt atmosphere- because of all the electronics within. But I still like lithiums more than any others!

Hope this helps.

Porta

 

Well, here is the news I have been waiting for. This is the first time that good news is not coming from a University needing funds, but from a manufacturer. I have full confident that when I am finished with my electric boat, I am able to replace my Lithium batteries with the one from : Japanese company Power Japan Plus http://www.gizmag.com/dual-carbon-fast-charging-battery/32121/

My apology, it took a little while to react, but I was driving 9368 km through Southern Africa, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Angola etc, and have now only been able to catch up with my mail. Unfortunately I have only 1 afternoon per week to work on my electric boat project. I started 4 years ago. The "toilet bril" as CDK it calls, is different designed, finished and mounted at the transom. Now my 4 m2 solarpanels will be fitted. During my trip, an interesting statement was made by a local game ranger. He stated that local boat builders were using Elephant grass mixed with epoxy glue for their boats. The Elephants grass is not a grass which is eaten by the Elephants, but the local tribe calls it Elephant grass, because it is as strong as an elephant and very light. Anybody who has some comment on the use of Elephant grass for the hull and boats?

 

That carbon battery tech seems promising. I wonder how long it will be until I can buy a large bank?

 

The Japanese industry is normally quite fast and not too much influenced by the Oil Industry as in America and Britain/Europe. I expect to see many other manufacturers making sub license deals with them. 2 Years? Bert