[RE-wrenches] Magnum System - Discharged Battery Bank

Fri Dec 19 13:58:22 PST 2014

Hi:

I've never been on a site where I've seen this either.  That's one reason 
why I find this group so interesting.

For me it makes sense if you consider the following,

1. The only difference between the positive and negative plate in a 
flooded lead-acid battery is the lead compound that was pressed and cured 
onto it during manufacture.  When fully charged, the negative plate is 
mostly Lead and the other mostly Lead Oxide.

2. The charge-discharge equation is: 

3. If  you fully discharge, (I mean to the bitter end), then all of the 
Lead, Lead Oxide and acid has been turned into Lead Sulphate and pretty 
much pure water.

4. If you can get some current to flow through the pure water, (sulphation 
crystals and the poorly conducting pure water in between the plates is one 
reason why dead batteries initially "wont accept a charge"), then when it 
starts charging, I guess the battery doesn't care which plate it starts 
depositing the Lead and Lead Oxide onto.

5. With a string of 24pcs of 2 volt cells, if 16 of them are making the 
proper voltage and 8 of them are 100% dead with no voltage, then the 
voltage applied by the good cells will appear as a reversed voltage on all 
the dead cells.

6. The dead cells see this as a charging voltage which causes the Lead and 
Lead oxide to begin forming on the wrong plates.

7. As long as there is persistent load on the bank which refuses to go 
away at any voltage, then I suppose in the limit, the reversal could 
happen in up to 1/2 of the cells in the battery bank.

For your site, it means regardless of what else may have happened, there 
must have been a persistent load on the batteries with no active charging 
source present. 

JARMO

_____________________________________________________________________________________ 

Jarmo Venalainen  |   Schneider Electric   |  Solar Business  |   CANADA | 
  Training & Development Specialist - Senior 
Phone: +604-422-2528  |   Fax: +604-420-1591  |   Mobile: +604-505-0291 
Email: jarmo.venalainen at schneider-electric.com  |   Site: www.SEsolar.com 
|   Address: 3700 Gilmore Way, Burnaby, BC V5G4M1 

*** Please consider the environment before printing this e-mail 

From:
Jay Peltz <jay at asis.com>
To:
RE-wrenches <re-wrenches at lists.re-wrenches.org>, 
Date:
12/19/2014 11:54 AM
Subject:
Re: [RE-wrenches] Magnum System - Discharged Battery Bank
Sent by:
"RE-wrenches" <re-wrenches-bounces at lists.re-wrenches.org>

I find it really curious. 
I've been dealing with batteries for almost 20 yrs. I've seen so many 
dead, flat batteries, systems etc I can't count them all. 
But I've yet to find a reversed one. 
I understand the process. 

I'm trying to understand how he could get multiple reversed batteries at 
one go?

Jay 
Peltz power 

Sent from my iPhone

On Dec 19, 2014, at 9:47 AM, Jarmo.Venalainen at schneider-electric.com 
wrote:

Hi: 

This cell reversal ability of lead acid batteries gives good perspective 
on just how much you can mistreat them and beat them up and still have an 
expectation of "recovery". 

Lithium cells on the other hand without a full range of protections would 
have long since filled the home with all kinds of interesting high 
temperature thermal events, gaseous compounds and chemicals, and there is 
no way you could get that magic smoke back into them. 

JARMO 
_____________________________________________________________________________________ 

Jarmo Venalainen  |   Schneider Electric   |  Solar Business  |   CANADA | 
  Training & Development Specialist - Senior 
Phone: +604-422-2528  |   Fax: +604-420-1591  |   Mobile: +604-505-0291 
Email: jarmo.venalainen at schneider-electric.com  |   Site: www.SEsolar.com 
|   Address: 3700 Gilmore Way, Burnaby, BC V5G4M1 

<mime-attachment.jpg>
*** Please consider the environment before printing this e-mail 

From: 
Corey Shalanski <cshalanski at joule-energy.com> 
To: 
re-wrenches at lists.re-wrenches.org, 
Date: 
12/19/2014 06:48 AM 
Subject: 
Re: [RE-wrenches] Magnum System - Discharged Battery Bank 
Sent by: 
"RE-wrenches" <re-wrenches-bounces at lists.re-wrenches.org>

Update on my investigation: 
I visited the customer's house yesterday to set up a pulse charger. Much 
to my surprise the three batteries that originally registered negative 
voltage are now reading positive. Does this make sense - are batteries 
able to shift between negative and positive voltages at such a low charge 
level? 

I do not see any evidence of distorted cases. 

On Thu, Dec 18, 2014 at 7:58 AM, <jay at asis.com> wrote: 

I second tump.
Most likely a bad /cell battery took out the system.
As these are VRLA batteries, I'm curious do,the cases look damaged such as 
expanded or sunk in?

Jay
Peltz power 

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