battery box fan [RE-wrenches]

[Ray Walters]

You need to plumb battery exhaust piping similar to other house exhaust
systems: stove pipes, plumbing vents, etc.. Preventing backdrafting is the
key, and that means plenty of verticle rise.  I've seen hole through the
wall style vents backdraft and freeze the batteries next to the
vent.Also,Hydrogen Sulfide gas is fairly toxic.  I agree that 1" to 2" pvc
pipe is adequate depending on battery size.

Ray Walters

At 08:03 AM 11/27/00 -0800, you wrote:
>Travis Creswell, Ozark Solar wrote:
>> 
>> My opinion is that active battery box venting is not needed.  A passive
vent
>> to the outside if to get rid of the charging smell is really all that's
>> necessary.  Let's face it if the hydrogen was a problem then a lot more
>> systems would have had some sort of explosion.
>> 
>Greetings all,
>
>On the hole battery vening issue, I often wonder about passive venting
>and vent "plumbing".  I did one system this summer that has the vent
>opening on the Northwest side of the builidng which in this case gets a
>lot of strong northwest winds off Lake Superior.  That whole side of the
>building ends up under pressure.  I did install an equalizing fan on
>this system, which is a muffin fan blowing into the front of (and low)
>on the battery box, pressurizing it.  It has a backdraft preventing
>sheet of heavy (Too-Tuff) plastic secured on the inside/top fan opening
>(fan mounted on outside of box).  The clients are weekenders and I have
>told them to use this fan to also warm up the battery when they come up
>during cold weather (wood heat).  No SW here, but like the idea of using
>an Aux relay to bring the fan on at high battery voltage.  Monkey shit
>(that grey putty that never dries) must be placed in battery cable
>conduit to prevent gases from being pushed back into the electronics
>end.  On passive with only one vent opening, I feel the vent pipe needs
>to be fairly large diameter, and many of my boxes that contain four to
>sixteen L-16's vented with 1-1/2 inch PVC.  Vertical rise is nice, but I
>have gone straight out the back of the box/wall as well.  I think fans
>push much better than they suck, but perhaps that is a matter of fan
>type as well.  I always place the vent opening high (or in the cover) on
>the box and any other opening (vent or conduit) low.  Any thoughts about
>the necessity/not of having a low vent opening (open to the building
>interior) to supply air to the enclosure and incourage air flow to the
>upper vent that is plumbed outside? -- Kurt Nelson
>
>PS - I tried a couple Radio Shacks around here and the little S-cage
>fans are not to be had.
>
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For info contact list moderator by email:
 michael.welch at homepower.com

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T O P I C A  http://www.topica.com/t/17
Newsletters, Tips and Discussions on Your Favorite Topics