Deep Cycle Lead Acid Battery Life Span

[kyleservicetech]

Originally Posted by JetPlaneFlyer

Yes and no.

From reading up it seems that sulfation can be a genuine issue on lead acid batteries but only on batteries that dont get fully charged on a regular basis.
On a battery that gets charged fully then de-sulfators aren't going to do any good at all because those batteries don't suffer from sulfation in the first place. They only offer any theoretical benefit on batteries that tend to operate mainly part charged and not often get fully 'topped-up'. In fact there is a chance that the pulsing that the de-sulphator produces could damage a healthy battery:
http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/a...to_prevent_it/

So on a deep cycle field battery that gets fully and regularly charged between flying sessions, according to the info I've found, sulfation should not be present. If this is the case then de-sulphators wont do any good and could actually cause damage to such batteries.

Of course there are loads of sites/youtube videos saying these de-sulphators work near miracles but they are invariable trying to sell the things

Yeah, I've also ran across that article at battery university. My lead acid batteries were always completely recharged immediately after flights, still had short battery life, like less than one year. And that was for two 120 Ampere Hour batteries in parallel.

One brand new 120 AmpHr battery was only good for two or three flights on my 12S2P A123 pack, and two in parallel was only good for 5 or 6 flights. Problem was after a 1/2 year or so, after a 24 hour charge on a deep cycle rated battery charger, those batteries would still show pretty much dead on an all glass type battery hydrometer. I even tried putting a high charge on them like they do on high voltage substation station batteries. Made absolutely no improvement.

Of course, these are big airplanes, and the deep cycle battery is much more of an issue when 55 Amps is being pulled out of them for 20 minutes at a time.

At any rate, my gasoline powered 12 Volt DC supply now has 231 charge cycles on its counter, and it's operation has been absolutely flawless. That thing will run my Cellpro Powerlab 8 as long as it has gas in its tank. (Well maybe not flawless, the automotive type $9.00 drive belts have been lasting about 100 charge cycles or so!)

Take a look:
http://www.wattflyer.com/forums/showthread.php?t=66066

[CHELLIE]

Review :: Battery Desulfator

[CHELLIE]

Infinitum Battery Desulfator ~ Optimize Battery Life Span 2-3X

[kyleservicetech]

Originally Posted by CHELLIE

Review :: Battery Desulfator

I copied the web page to youtube and ran it. Seems this guy is just measuring the terminal voltage of a battery, and when it hits 12.96 Volts DC, he is deciding the battery is "Good". There is no way to determine if a battery is good or bad, unless you run an actual Ampere Hour discharge test on it.

It's a very different story when you start pulling 50 Amps out of a 120 Ampere Hour deep cycle battery. What happens right off the bat, at that high of a discharge current, the effective amp hour rating drops by about 1/2 or 60 Ampere Hours. And after 10 or 20 charge discharge cycles, that battery is not good for much more than one or two flights on my Giant Scale Big Stick.

Something I've pretty much verified while doing so.

Putting 12.96 Volts DC on my 120 Ampere Hour deep cycle batteries did not restore them back to 120 Ampere Hours.

[JetPlaneFlyer]

Originally Posted by CHELLIE

Infinitum Battery Desulfator ~ Optimize Battery Life Span 2-3X

I'm a sceptic... show me the evidence.
To my sceptical eye I'm highly suspicious about any claim of 'Up-to' three times longer life. I'm suspicious because their words are very carefully chosen. It's a commonly used scammer's tactic, they state the maximum life increase (which they claim to have got in their own tests) but they don't quote a minimum or an average. If you buy the thing and it makes no difference at all they are totally covered, zero life increase fits nicely in to 'Up-to 3x' range

What about some proper scientific independent testing? These de-sulphators have been around for a while so if these little add on de-sulphinators work in typical applications surely there must be some genuine independent and scientific evidence? And I don't count a brief Youtube video as 'evidence'. For one we don't know that the battery was ever faulty, for two we don't know that the battery was actually fixed and for three the guy could have been a de-sulphator manufacturer for all I know (I said I was a sceptic).

[CHELLIE]

Originally Posted by kyleservicetech

I copied the web page to youtube and ran it. Seems this guy is just measuring the terminal voltage of a battery, and when it hits 12.96 Volts DC, he is deciding the battery is "Good". There is no way to determine if a battery is good or bad, unless you run an actual Ampere Hour discharge test on it.

It's a very different story when you start pulling 50 Amps out of a 120 Ampere Hour deep cycle battery. What happens right off the bat, at that high of a discharge current, the effective amp hour rating drops by about 1/2 or 60 Ampere Hours. And after 10 or 20 charge discharge cycles, that battery is not good for much more than one or two flights on my Giant Scale Big Stick.

Something I've pretty much verified while doing so.

Putting 12.96 Volts DC on my 120 Ampere Hour deep cycle batteries did not restore them back to 120 Ampere Hours.

True on the voltage, but it is showing that the battery is being conditioned, its best to leave the desulfanator on for 4 weeks, you just leave it connected to your car battery, it has a automatic shut down built into it, it will quit working at about 12.5 Volts, after 4 weeks of use, the battery is just about like new again, about 80% of batteries can be saved, the other 20% are to far gone with damaged plates, I had 1 battery i could not save out of about 6 batteries, I use it on my storage batteries on my solar cell unit, I have saved a lot of batteries for friends too, they love it

[CHELLIE]

Originally Posted by JetPlaneFlyer

I'm a sceptic... show me the evidence.. To my sceptical eye I'm pretty suspicious about any claim of 'Up-to' three times longer life. I'm suspicious because their words are very carefully chosen. They state the maximum life increase but they don't quote a minimum or an average. If you buy it and it makes no difference they are totally covered, zero life increase fits nicely in to 'Up-to 3x' range.

What about some proper scientific independent testing? These de-sulphators have been around for a while so if these little add on de-sulphinators work in typical applications surely there must be some genuine independent and scientific evidence? And I don't count a brief Youtube video as 'evidence'. For one we don't know that the battery was ever faulty, for two we don't know that the battery was actually fixed and for three the guy could have been a de-sulphator manufacturer for all I know (I said I was a sceptic).

Most people will not try anything New and Different, But i will, I will test New units to see if it really does work or not, and most of the Items i test have a Money back guarantee, So What do you have to loose NADA, You have Everything to Gain and Nothing to loose with a money back Guarantee, Being Sceptical will only Hurt you if you dont take advantage of a money back Guarantee on a product and Give it a try, remember i posted those electric power savers, They work, I have one and i installed one on my parents home, they are Happier that a pig in Sheet with their power saver it has saved them up to half of their electric bill, it has saved me just about half of my electric bill too, and it has a money back guarantee , yea, the Sceptics Always loose out on a Good thing, they will never learn, and they just keep saying it wont work LOL , I even use hydrogen generators on my vehicles, I save up to half of my fuel cost with them, i have made them for friends too, they love them, in a mazda 4 wheel drive truck, my friend has more than doubled his fuel mileage, they work and work well You can only point a Horse to water, but you cant Make them Drink Take advantage of a Money back Guarantee, You will be Glad you did

[JetPlaneFlyer]

Actually being sceptical has saved me from many money grabing scams. Everyone should be able to apply some sceptical thinking, it's basic common sense to ask "where is the proof".

I've got an open mind on these things. The principal is obviously is basically sound (unlike many other scams 'HHO' for instance). Maybe they do work but the weasel worded marketing and the lack of independent testing lights up my 'snake-oil' warning lights right away.

The fact that you have used one and it works for you is at least some evidence. But (here come the sceptical thinking again) you also have an 'HHO' generator in your car and you think that works too.


Steve

[CHELLIE]

Originally Posted by JetPlaneFlyer

Actually being sceptical has saved me from many money grabing scams. Everyone should be able to apply some sceptical thinking, it's basic common sense to ask "where is the proof".

I've got an open mind on these things. The principal is obviously is basically sound (unlike many other scams 'HHO' for instance). Maybe they do work but the weasel worded marketing and the lack of independent testing lights up my 'snake-oil' warning lights right away.

The fact that you have used one and it works for you is at least some evidence. But (here come the sceptical thinking again) you also have an 'HHO' generator in your car and you think that works too.


Steve

They do work, its hard to tell people that, but not every design of a HHO generator works, they have to produce a certain amout of HHO gas in order to work, there are some very poor units out there and there are some very good units out there, I dont expect you to belive this, But, my son with a 1998 chevy truck with a 350 v8 engine was getting 70 miles to the gallon of gas with the help of HHO gas, we even experimented with water & lye but its very Caustic to make and you want to use a gas Scrubber with it ( a Big Water BONG ) to clean out the Lye in the gas, its made by putting Aluminum scraps into water with a high concentration of Lye, the gas produced is hydrogen we installed a unit in my sons ford truck, and he was going down the freeway over 70 miles per hour with out touching the gas peddal The Good old Boys in texas use these hyd generators in their pickup trucks, they use their Empty beer cans and toss them in the reactor with the lye and water, this same gas is used in the military to fill up weather balloons, they add water to a lye and aluminum power to make hydrogen.
http://www.instructables.com/id/Run-...2/Storage-Bag/

http://publiclaboratory.org/notes/ma...loon-burn-test

I've tried the aluminum/lye method too, and yes, it's nice and controllable but slow. You can make it fast (very fast even), but then the temperatures get higher and then the vapor from the water gets into your balloon. Maybe a really long tube would allow it to cool..
What I've been thinking of (no idea how viable this is, since I'm so bad with chemistry) is would it be possible to produce hydrogen inside a big closed, airtight bottle, in advance of the flight. The pressure would build up and then once in the field you could fill a balloon with the hydrogen from the bottle quite quickly.
Doubts: would pressure keep building up, or would the reaction stop under pressure?
Would the hydrogen in the bottle slowly mix with the acid and become lye+aluminium again?

[bluzjamer]

Wow this thread has gone almost Star Trek going to where almost no man has gone before.....no offense Chellie.
What we all seem to be missing is...I don't know about most of you but I kind of like the quietness of electric flight. Hauling a generator out on the field to charge up some batterries might really irk some of my fellow club members. I think they like the peace and quiet also. I'm thinking it might be better to buy some extra batteries and charge them at home. I guess some one can design a roof rack mounted solar panel to charge batteries. Just my $.02.

[kyleservicetech]

Originally Posted by bluzjamer

Wow this thread has gone almost Star Trek going to where almost no man has gone before.....no offense Chellie.
What we all seem to be missing is...I don't know about most of you but I kind of like the quietness of electric flight. Hauling a generator out on the field to charge up some batterries might really irk some of my fellow club members. I think they like the peace and quiet also. I'm thinking it might be better to buy some extra batteries and charge them at home. I guess some one can design a roof rack mounted solar panel to charge batteries. Just my $.02.

Yeah, hauling a generator to the field is a little noisy. But the good thing is, most of my club members still fly those big gassers, that make a lot more noise than my Harbor Freight $99 engine.

When going to an electric fun fly, I take pains to park at the far end of the field.

Problem is for charging the A123 batteries in my two giant scale models would take four of those 120 Ampere Hour deep cycle batteries. It's been my experience that using two of those 120 Amp Hour deep cycle batteries won't stand up for for one flying season.

Seems they just don't like having 55 Amperes pulled out of them for a couple of hours straight.

[CHELLIE]

Originally Posted by bluzjamer

Wow this thread has gone almost Star Trek going to where almost no man has gone before.....no offense Chellie.
What we all seem to be missing is...I don't know about most of you but I kind of like the quietness of electric flight. Hauling a generator out on the field to charge up some batterries might really irk some of my fellow club members. I think they like the peace and quiet also. I'm thinking it might be better to buy some extra batteries and charge them at home. I guess some one can design a roof rack mounted solar panel to charge batteries. Just my $.02.

The little Honda generators are super quiet, they wont bother anyone solar cells will work great too, they will help to keep a charged battery up on a charge, Harbor freight tool has them on sale from time to time, if you have a larger pick up truck or RV, you can add another Battery to it, and have it on a solenoid, so its not draining the main battery with the ign switch off when your charging your lipos, the solenoid is connected to the ing switch, and when the ing switch is off, it breaks the current from the main battery to the second battery, and when the ign is on, it will charge with the main battery, 3 different ways of doing it Take care and have fun, Chellie

[bluzjamer]

Honda gensets are nice but a little pricey last time I checked, used to have a 1000 watt yamaha and it was about $700. Have a larger genset now for the home and it is very quiet but large and heavey. The field I fly most at is a glider and electric only club I don't think they want any noise. If it works for you Denny then stick with it.
Chellie I used to put together custom vans way back and had all kinds of dual battery systems with wired in Isolators. These days it's 4 wheel drive, small ones with no room for anything. Cheaper to buy a few extra batteries and charge them at home. Works in my situation. Am looking for a 4x charger though.

[CHELLIE]

Originally Posted by bluzjamer

Honda gensets are nice but a little pricey last time I checked, used to have a 1000 watt yamaha and it was about $700. Have a larger genset now for the home and it is very quiet but large and heavey. The field I fly most at is a glider and electric only club I don't think they want any noise. If it works for you Denny then stick with it.
Chellie I used to put together custom vans way back and had all kinds of dual battery systems with wired in Isolators. These days it's 4 wheel drive, small ones with no room for anything. Cheaper to buy a few extra batteries and charge them at home. Works in my situation. Am looking for a 4x charger though.

Yes, I agree that its cheaper to buy a few extra batteries I charge a few batteries from my cars battery, but not to many, because i dont want to discharge my cars battery way down Take care and have fun, Chellie

[kyleservicetech]

Originally Posted by bluzjamer

Honda gensets are nice but a little pricey last time I checked, used to have a 1000 watt yamaha and it was about $700. Have a larger genset now for the home and it is very quiet but large and heavey. The field I fly most at is a glider and electric only club I don't think they want any noise. If it works for you Denny then stick with it.
Chellie I used to put together custom vans way back and had all kinds of dual battery systems with wired in Isolators. These days it's 4 wheel drive, small ones with no room for anything. Cheaper to buy a few extra batteries and charge them at home. Works in my situation. Am looking for a 4x charger though.

Yeah,
So far, no one has complained about my Harbor Freight 6.5 HP gas engine and 79 Amp Alternator and its noise.

As previously indicated though, those giant scale models just are not compatible with chargers based on a 12 Volt 120 Ampere deep cycle battery. My Cellpro Powerlab 8 charger is pulling 55 Amps out of the DC supply used to power it up. Charge time is about 20 minutes.

As an example, you can buy a electric power substation back up battery (Try to find a price on one) with the part number STT12V150, which is a 150 Ampere Hour 12 VDC battery. These batteries are rated for an 8 hour discharge time.

Their specifications indicate that this battery is only good for 90 minutes at 60 Amps. That translates to 90 Amp Hours or 90/150, which is 60% of its rated 150 Ampere Hours. And, this battery weighs in at 165 pounds! That's double the weight of a typical 120 Ampere Hour deep cycle battery.

Based on this info, that 150 Ampere Hour battery would only be good for four flights before it is totally discharged. So, if you want to pull about 60 Amps out of one of these batteries and get 6 or 8 flights out of it, you'd be looking at something like a 350 Ampere hour battery.

Take a look at a discharge current table for this battery, attached.

On the other hand, this 150 Ampere Hour battery is the SMALLEST battery size of the STT type. These batteries range up to 3000 Ampere Hours. You'd better have a big truck to haul one of these around. (Yup, I've seen these big batteries. They just about need a fork lift truck to move them.)

Problem is, solar cells simply won't be able to charge these type batteries to full charge.

[kyleservicetech]

In posting #40, I referred to a SBS battery part number STT12V150. These things weigh in at 160 pounds, have a 150 Ampere Hour rating, and can handle discharge currents on the order of 30-40 amps without effort. Increasing the discharge current to 60 Amps reduces its rated ampere hour capacity to about 60% of normal.

Well, I just received a price quote from SBS (Storage Battery Systems) in Menomonee Falls, WI, about a 30 minute drive from my house.

They have them in stock. Unfortunately, their price is a whopping $800.00 each. Plus shipping and handling.

Guess my 6.5 HP Harbor Freight/Alternator setup does work pretty well.

[70sflyer]

You sold me Chellie.Thanks

[MikeCr]

This is all interesting reading. I'm pondering what to do myself. I've been using a 110AH deep cycle battery for about 5 years now, ever since I ran my car battery down (car battery was on it's last legs though) and had to get a jump. Fortunately there were others at the field!

Most of the models I fly are 3S 2200 or less except for my Swift heli, 6S 4000maH. But I'm building a Sig Astro Hog that will use a 6S 5000maH and if I fly both of these regularly I may end up overtaxing my deep cycle battery. I really don't want to go the route of a generator and if I did it would be one of the Honda 2000's (used them at work) but they're pricey.



Mike

[kyleservicetech]

Originally Posted by MikeCr

This is all interesting reading. I'm pondering what to do myself. I've been using a 110AH deep cycle battery for about 5 years now, ever since I ran my car battery down (car battery was on it's last legs though) and had to get a jump. Fortunately there were others at the field!

Most of the models I fly are 3S 2200 or less except for my Swift heli, 6S 4000maH. But I'm building a Sig Astro Hog that will use a 6S 5000maH and if I fly both of these regularly I may end up overtaxing my deep cycle battery. I really don't want to go the route of a generator and if I did it would be one of the Honda 2000's (used them at work) but they're pricey.



Mike

The big issue here with these deep cycle batteries is my A123 battery packs. Everything worked fairly well when charging a 6S2P A123 pack at 10 Amps, pulling about 24 amps out of the deep cycle battery. One lead acid battery charge was good for perhaps a half dozen flights, with the battery lasting a year or so.

Things went to heck when charging my 12S2P A123 battery packs as 6S4P, with a charge rate of 30 Amps. That is pulling 54 Amps out of the 12 volt battery. Those kind of currents really kills them.

You'd be charging your LiPos at a much lower current value of perhaps 5 Amps, pulling 10 or 15 amps out of the deep cycle battery. That's much easier on the lead acid batteries.

For the cost of a Honda generator, you could save a lot of $$$ and double up and buy two 120 Ampere Hour deep cycle batteries, and run them in parallel. This combination should last a long long time.

[MikeCr]

Originally Posted by kyleservicetech

The big issue here with these deep cycle batteries is my A123 battery packs. Everything worked fairly well when charging a 6S2P A123 pack at 10 Amps, pulling about 24 amps out of the deep cycle battery. One lead acid battery charge was good for perhaps a half dozen flights, with the battery lasting a year or so.

Things went to heck when charging my 12S2P A123 battery packs as 6S4P, with a charge rate of 30 Amps. That is pulling 54 Amps out of the 12 volt battery. Those kind of currents really kills them.

You'd be charging your LiPos at a much lower current value of perhaps 5 Amps, pulling 10 or 15 amps out of the deep cycle battery. That's much easier on the lead acid batteries.

For the cost of a Honda generator, you could save a lot of $$$ and double up and buy two 120 Ampere Hour deep cycle batteries, and run them in parallel. This combination should last a long long time.

That's what I was thinking although I wasn't sure how it would work paralleling them since they'd be 2 different batteries. Of course with flight batteries you never want to series or parallel 2 or more batteries that aren't the same exact battery, same P/N, same age, etc. But I suppose with the deep cycle maybe it wouldn't be as critical. Of course I could just buy 2 new DC batteries for less than the cost of a decent generator. About this time I'm thinking about the flying field a friend of mine flies at near his winter home in Tucson AZ, electric power!



Mike

[cyclops2]

Lead batteries need a higher & higher FINAL charging voltage as they wear out. From any reason.

Buy a cheap old Honda Civic to carry you & the wife..... Buy a used enclosed trailer. Put all your Hobby stuff into the trailer.

Have the deep cycle batteries in the trailer. You can then use " smart charge " 120 vac car battery charger for the deep cycle recharges at home or anywhere else...........Even a generator at the field. Park your rig length wise to the flight line. Generator on the far side to reduce any field noise............I could see that working.

[MikeCr]

Originally Posted by cyclops2

Lead batteries need a higher & higher FINAL charging voltage as they wear out. From any reason.

Buy a cheap old Honda Civic to carry you & the wife..... Buy a used enclosed trailer. Put all your Hobby stuff into the trailer.

Have the deep cycle batteries in the trailer. You can then use " smart charge " 120 vac car battery charger for the deep cycle recharges at home or anywhere else...........Even a generator at the field. Park your rig length wise to the flight line. Generator on the far side to reduce any field noise............I could see that working.

Thanks. Unfortunately none of that works for me

#1 Can't afford all that
#2 I live in an apartment and have no place to park all that
#3 The field I fly at doesn't allow vehicles to park near the flight line. Our cars are parked 100 yards away with a golf cart and trailer to haul gear to FL.


Mike

[cyclops2]

You have a GREAT club set up.

Cheaper way ? Pour all the money into more battery packs.......REALLY GOOD chargers like the FMA units. They refuse to charge if anything is wrong with a battery. Best units for charging in a building that people live in...........If you have a outdoor porch ? Great place to charge & store the LIPOS. Safety reasons.

Good luck

[MikeCr]

Originally Posted by cyclops2

You have a GREAT club set up.

Cheaper way ? Pour all the money into more battery packs.......REALLY GOOD chargers like the FMA units. They refuse to charge if anything is wrong with a battery. Best units for charging in a building that people live in...........If you have a outdoor porch ? Great place to charge & store the LIPOS. Safety reasons.

Good luck

Unfortunately no porch. More packs are good and I am leaning towards the FMA charger. I haven't had time to run through the data. What is the difference between the PowerLAb 6 and 8?


Mike

[cyclops2]

Send ...everydayflyer.....a PM about your question. He is the best on chargers.

Rich