battery pulsing gizmo

I had a sales pitch from someone selling a battery life extending gizmo,
apparently how it works is... it goes across the terminals and draws a few
ma from the battery, then uses this to send back a higher voltage jolt. It
does this every few seconds. It's supposed to reduce the sulfating of the
plates when its stored and extend the life of the battery.

The pitch was for use on stored boat batteries, so it should work for a bike
battery as well. Except the boat batteries were regular lead acid top-em-up
things, not the no-maintenance type like the bike, I don't know if the
chemistry would be that different.

I have a problem with the math though... )

They want ~$70 for one of these things, probably about the price of a new
bike battery, which is supposed to last ~7 yrs.

If this adds the 20-30% life to the battery they claim, then I would have to
go thru ~5 batteries before I start to get a payback... or ~35 yrs. That's
if the gizmo is still working at that point.

Given that I'm over 50... maybe I'll not bother.. )

But if anyone has any comments on these things it would be interesting to
hear them...

P.

 

My gut feeling is that lead acid batteries are due to go they way of the CRT
anyways... they've been around about the right amount of time and there's
gotta be something better on the horizon...

This item can't be a new idea either, and if it was that terrific, battery
makers would just build it into batteries I figure, couldn't cost more than
a couple of bucks in this day and age.

I was at a talk recently on supercapacitors, I do mech stuff at work, so I
didn't totally get it, but it the pros of them over batteries in some
applications was very interesting...

P.

 

It would be really nice. Better battery technology would enable a lot of
things. I'd love to have a laptop, GPS, PDA, or cell phone I didn't have
to charge every other day.

There's a whole line of electric mini RC helicopters using lightweight
super small Li-po (lithium polymer) batteries. The big problem with them
is they're REAL picky about how they're charged, and they REALLY like to
explode. They need special chargers and you MUST use that charger.

http://www.rchobbies.org/lithium_battery_breakthrough.htm

These things in my helicopters are literally the size of a vending
machine pack of gum.

Essentially gasoline and batteries are "portable energy", one chemical
and one electrical in form.

I can't really see a compact battery that's going to be very safe. If
you stuff that much energy in a really small space, it's probably not
going to be very stable. Think about all the laptop battery fire stories
you've heard recently.

I'm hoping supercapacitors or fuel cells do start to pan out.

I remember in the late '60s there was tiny thermoelectric piles about
the size of a large shirt button that could power a cell phone for 8
months to a year. The were powered by the heat of atomic decay and of
course "atomic energy is bad" to all the hippies.

-gc

 

No comment.

Rob.

 

I think that within 5 years we will have working versions of these tiny
turbines:
http://www.azonano.com/news.asp?newsID=3090

You could have huge, huge energy densities with these turbines... Annual
cell phone "refills" won't be too far away.

 

Basic problem is that if you jam a lot of energy into a small
space and want to be able to discharge it quickly, you've
likely just created a great explosive/incindiary device.

I always liked flywheel storage, but they have problems of
their own including high self-discharge rates and distintegration
at inconvenient times.

Ya gotta kinda wonder how they're disposed of in 8 months.

I'm also kinda curious what happens if the baby swallows it,
but that's more a question for the family that decides to buy it.

Since the hippies are long gone, maybe you should invest
in this miracle gadget. Best of luck with it.

 

Although that's partially true, statements like those typically apply to the
oddities that we see on the evening local news such as the water-powered
welder we saw a couple months ago. But the info about these turbines are
ending up in scholarly journals and trade magazines as actual production
machines, not to mention the backing of a university such as MIT. I doubt
that this will be the last we see of this idea. Not all research goes into
its foreseen purpose but often spins off into applications that weren't
imagined before.

I would be cynical about this too if there wasn't so much info about it. I
can scan some pages from the article on these turbines my ASME magazine if
you'd like, pointing out the obstacles, etc and possible solutions.

 

If it's the sort of device that I'm thinking of (a radio-isotope thermal
generator, RTG), they still see modest use in spacecraft (unmanned).
They are a reliable source of power for probes that will travel far from
the sun, where solar panels wouldn't provide sufficient energy.

I don't really know much about the boundaries of the technology (e.g.
size limits, power output, output versus size, etc.) but I'm sure some
research online would turn up at least the basic parameters,
controversies, etc.

--
Later,
John



'indiana' is a 'nolnn' and 'hoosier' is a 'solkk'. Indiana doesn't solkk.

 

And how about noise? Have you ever heard a jet turbine model airplane?
(not just the ramjet ones or ducted-fan "jets" either)

Not only are they loud, but the noise is especially harsh.

-gc

 

Yes, that wasn't a consideration back then, but then lead, mercury and
cadmium from current batteries ain't so fun either.

Actually it only emits alpha radiation, and skin or a sheet of paper is
enough to stop it. It's not a mutagen, but the stuff in it is poisonous
just like a watch battery or AA cell.

-gc

 

Exactly, except small, with a hot middle and cold outside for the
thermocouples.

Probably not, considering this stuff was in my '70 World Book
encyclopaedia Year Book and I haven't heard anything about it since.
It's essentially a AA battery that lasts 8 months demonstrated, with the
possiblity of many years with more research.

I wonder how an electric bike with an Apollo ALSEP style RTG would do?

My copy of the Apollo 15 mission report says... 70 watts.. oops. Oh well.

-gc

 

There was one device described about ten years ago where
(from memory) a radioactive source excited a phosphor which
then drove a photovoltaic device, providing a multi-year electric
source. I think one suggested application was runway lights.

 

I meant RTG's in general, sorry.

Yeah, piling up a bunch of ceramic radio-isotopes with thermocouples
buried in them doesn't seem like a really good thing, unless you've got
a way of dealing with the waste stream (and burial isn't a particularly
good option). Provided that the waste _could_ be dealt with, then the
concept has its interest, anyway.

Still, fuel cells are rather less politically-charged, potentially
(depending on the particular technology used) less problematic in case
of accidental destruction, and potentially a better use of resources (if
you can source fuel locally, if the cell body and mechanism are durable,
etc.).

I just read about a sugar-solution fuel cell technology that's being
developed. Efficiency is low (surprise), and applications are in that
"five to seven" year (which really means something like "a long time or
maybe never") horizon. Still, the methanol solution cells are quite
promising already, so maybe we'll see some consumer fuel-cell stuff
hitting the market soon.

--
Later,
John



'indiana' is a 'nolnn' and 'hoosier' is a 'solkk'. Indiana doesn't solkk.

 

Was that a typo... Methanol ? ) The buzz these days seems to be about
ethanol.

Ahh.. ethanol.

I read an article recently where they estimated the petroleum cost of
fertilizers, transport, distillation etc to make 10 gal of ethanol from corn
was I think about 8 gal.

Aside from that, you can eat corn or feed it to cattle or something.... why
would you swap 8 gal of petroleum for 10 gal of ethanol...and petroleum
probably has a significantly higher energy density. Seems the pain in the
ass factor alone would make it not worth the effort, aside from
wasting.....an awful lot of hard earned corn.

The bottom line seemed to be that if we could make ethanol from corn STALKs
instead of corn, we could be ahead.

I've wondered, whats wrong with putting Methanol in gas? I tried this once,
to blend gas with methanol to make a cheap Coleman fuel for camping...
seemed it will mix in some proportions one way but not the other way
'round... didn't wind up with cheap Coleman fuel but killed an afternoon and
got a feeling I'd learned somethun.... ie didn't seem to work.

(I tried this out of principle, a $4.50 gallon of Coleman fuel turned into
$7.50 by the time I'd paid all the taxes and an environmental "paints and
solvents levy", despite the fact that it was being used as a fuel and I had
argued the point...)

Another reason I've wondered why they insist on mixing ethanol instead of
methanol with gas is... I heard someplace you can make methanol (wood
alcohol) by heating wood in the absence of oxygen, like in a partial vacuum.
Corn stalks, sawdust, slash... all kinds of things come to mind.

P.

 

I believe they are also used in unmanned weather stations in remote area.

Ian Singer
--


=========================================================================
See my homepage at http://www.iansinger.com
hosted on http://www.1and1.com/?k_id=10623894
All genealogy is stored in TMG from http://www.whollygenes.com
Charts and searching using TNG from http://www.tngsitebuilding.com
I am near Toronto Canada, can I tell where you are from your reply?
=========================================================================

 

The theory behind the Battery Tender (tm) and the newer electronic
versions offered by their competitors, is that a battery needs to be
cycled during a time of prolonged storage or inactivity by the vehicle
in which it is installed.

The battery is discharged a bit, and then charged back up.

Most m/c batteries are good to last 3-4 years in a vehicle that is not
used regularly.



Wudsracer/Jim Cook
Smackover Racing
'06 Gas Gas DE300
'82 Husqvarna XC250
Team LAGNAF

 

Pah. Latecomers. Rover had them more than 50 years ago. They solved the
heat issue, but not the fuel consumption problem.

 

You have a very good point about eating less meat.

Have to be careful here... but what I've heard is that the ratio is about
10:1 for protein conversion for each step in the food chain.

If this theory is true... if we ate soy protein and not soy fed beef
protein, we'd be that much more ahead of the game.

This is also supposed to be significant deal with the fish farming thing,
something which can be a hot issue where I live. The feed pellets they give
the salmon are made from sea stuff we won't eat, and from stuff higher in
the food chain than a wild salmon normally diets on.

This does two things, it means a lb of farmed salmon sucks more lb of ....
biostuff.... from the earth than a lb of wild salmon. It also means that
there is a higher biological concentration of heavy metals etc in farmed
salmon.

But I'm willing to risk the future of the world by consuming steak instead
of ... what's the white yuky stuff that makes you wanna puke... oh yeh,
Tofu! And I buy farmed salmon because the wild stuff is much more expensive,
less available, and doesn't taste that much better if you don't have a real
one to compare it to..

(I guess I owe you a source for my ethanol article comments, I believe it
was Jan '07 Scientific American).

Motorcycle content.... if I ate better and lost weight my bike would go
faster with me on it. )

P.