Forklift battery info

Total nominal charge of 825 AH * 36 volts = 30 KWH. In 8 hours that proportions to a 3.7 KW charger. Thus the whopping big 3-phase chargers you see for these things. You're not gonna charge this thing from a 120VAC outlet, at least not quickly.

Lead price today: $1.52/lb.

Ah, electric vehicles. A toxic, hazardous "fuel tank" that costs $1000s, weighs tons, holds the energy equivalent of a few gallons of gasoline, takes all day to refill from a pump that itself costs more $1000s, and wears out in a few years.

You can automatically dismiss as fools any greens promoting electric vehicles.

There is always hydrogen fuel cells. A city in CA has been running a fleet of them and averaging over $50/mile.

Free men own guns - www(dot)geocities(dot)com/CapitolHill/5357/

A quick calculation on the back of a used envelope tells me that 30 KWH is actually less than the energy equivalent of ONE gallon of gasoline. Now you know why it is so damn hard to build a practical electric car.

Vaughn

$50 a mile? If an 80,000 lb. semi can travel 7 miles on diesel at $4 a gallon that be about 57¢ a mile.

Hydrogen might be a great fuel, but how much would it cost to build hydrogen filling stations all across the country, and unless we build a whole lot of nuclear power plants, where are we going to get the power to make all of the hydrogen?

On Fri, 29 Feb 2008 19:31:33 -0800, with neither quill nor qualm, "Roger Shoaf" quickly quoth:

That ain't cheap! I thought you were mistaken, but see you're not:

We need the nuke power to replace that extremely dirty coal we're now burning.

-- An idealist believes the short run doesn't count. A cynic believes the long run doesn't matter. A realist believes that what is done or left undone in the short run determines the long run. -- Sydney J. Harris

Yes, as a hydrocarbon, not as the element.

Randy, I believe your arithmatic is faulty. In your battery description, you add your cell amp/hr rating and the cells are arranged in series. That is incorrect. Cell amp/hr ratings are only additive when placed in parallel. So in your case, the entire 36V battery has a 75 Amp/hr rating, which makes much more sense as these batteries are designed for deep discharge, use thicker plates and a lower plate surface area. Consequently, the charge rate should not exceed 10% of its Amp/hr rating or 7.5 Amps. Steve

He's talking about amp hours per plate. The 825 sounds quite close for for a fork lift battery although many are much larger.

Yes, that is my point, There is one positive and one negative plate per cell. They are connected in series, 2 Volts per cell. In series, voltage is additive, not amp/hrs. In parallel, the amp/hrs are additive not the voltage. Please do not confuse the cold start amp rating with amp/hrs, they are completely different. Steve

On Sun, 2 Mar 2008 09:30:52 +0100, "Steve Lusardi" wrote: I normally do not top post but as you did .....

Each cell has 11 plates in PARALELL. The AH of each cell is therefore

Richard

"Richard Edwards" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com...

Steve must not have understood the oringinal post about the number of plated per cell.

Steve apologizes. Steve did misunderstand. Steve

A whole lot more than 2 plates per cell, Bucko!!!

That 12 and 11 plate thing makes no sense at all to me. Does anyone else understand what he's trying to say?

Jeff

I may not be around to see it, but I'd put my money on solar energy becoming our saving grace as solar cell efficiency gets improved and manufacturing costs lowered. The electricity they generated could be used to make hydrogen if needed.

Jeff

I suspect he means that each cell has (of course) two poles, positive and negative, but that each is made of 11 or 12 connected lead grids (plates).

Yes the negative plates shed electrons, so for the positive plates to ALL be active on both sides, each cell MUST have one more negative plate than positives. For economy,(of lead and active material used, and therefore weight) those outer negative plates COULD be single sided (half plates) but that would require 3 kinds of negative, and one kind of positive plate to be made for each cell.

Not very economically feasible on the long run

But the efficiency of converting solar electricity to hydrogen needs to be significantly higher than the efficiency of charging batteries for this to become reality.

I'm still expecting a breakthrough in battery or ultracapacitor technology to make straight electrical vehicle power feasible - which would allow solar energy to really come into its own.

At this point, ALL the technology to make a commercially acceptable electric car is not only available, but proven and mature, EXCEPT for the battery. As for hydrogen technology, which type are we proposing? Hydrogen combustion (heat engine) or hydrogen/electric (fuel cell)? Hydrogen as an engine fuel has many hurdles to become a commercially acceptable solution. Hydrogen fuel cell technology is closer, but still has hurdles.

As long as your continging on a breakthrough, you ought to choose a more plausible and more valuable breakthrough. Like room-temperature superconductors or cold fusion. Then the clean, abundant energy problems are solved.

Wishing and hoping for better batteries is like dreaming about a pony who doesn't eat much.