[Gasification] DC to AC inverters: was ((Re: Something Might beWrong (OT??))

[Peter Singfield]

I believe it was to run his electric chainsaw from the batteries in his
golf car that he uses to drive to the chainsaw cutting job in??

Your absolutely correct on minimum power requirement though.

And we really do need to know how to roll our own batteries --

I just proposed that plan to some people here.

And excerpt from that message:

Here is how they are doing battery recycling in El Salvador right now --
3rd world style -- but not using the pure lead for plante batteries -- but
rather for ne car batteries.

http://www.ilmc.org/Basel%20Project/El%20Salvador/Visit%20Reports/PDF/Visit%
20Report%20El%20Salvador%20Record%20Batteries.pdf

It is much easier to make plant batteries.

Dennis -- bird in the hand stuff -- this is the time when only bird in hand
stuff counts.

>With proper conditioning it should be possible to keep Plante-type batteries
>going for many years, until the plates warp. Then you recycle them and keep
>going indefinitely. I like your idea! Renco in BZ city was making batteries
>but i hear that their quality was so poor that they now import batteries
>from Florida with the Renco label. So the country needs a good battery
>supplier.
>

They don't make the plates here -- only assemble them -- and use to cheap
suppliers.

Car and other hi charge density batteries use lead doped with other
elements. Plante style use only 99.9999% pure lead.

First they refine the old batteries to pure lead -- then re-dope them -- 

If your working only recycling plante batteries back to plante batteries --
it becomes much simpler.

There are two ways to start this up -- buy the refined lead -- or refine
your own from used car batteries.

Refining lead is a little tricky to -- but -- it is carbon (charcoal) --
lime -- plus dead lead battery powder -- in a small blast furnace -- quite
basic.

We have lot's of dead batteries here do nothing but poisoning the environment.

But refining the doped elements out of scrap car battery "powder" is much
more difficult than recycling lead oxide and lead sulphide -- which is all
you have in the degraded battery "powder" left over from wasted plante
style batteries.

***********end*******

>If things really
>do fall apart, those type of batteries will not do you much good very
>long. The big industrial forklift batteries MIGHT last 10 years, the
>bigger, heavier 2v cell telco batteries might last even 25 years.

Exactly -- so now is the time to make up that first batch.

Plante batteries with 1/2 in thick solid lead plates "live" for 20 years or
more in continuous use.

Those telco batteries are probable Plante style???

Teach the grandchildren how to recycle them -- eh??

>My wife and I lived for 18 years
>off-grid with absolutely no electric at all for the first 12 years.


I think I'll walk over to my neighbors here and pay a nice visit with them
-- and observe how happy and well they live -- even though they do not have
any electric power at all -- and never have had!

Those being the same neighbors I posted the picture of their simple --
ancient style -- fire hearth -- which is traditional -- for thousands of
years -- and still works so very well!

I should explain to the old grandmother there -- over 90 years in age now
-- how breathing all that bad fumes cause she never had a modern stove --
has since being a child always cooked over that same fire hearth -- will
shorten her life dramatically -- right guys??

We need to learn to see more of the big picture ---

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens  can
change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever  has."
 
Margaret Mead 

Ya Maggie -- but change for the better -- or what -- eh??
 


Peter/Belize


At 02:48 PM 4/14/2007 -0500, Harmon Seaver wrote:
>Jeff Davis wrote:
>> On Friday 13 April 2007 11:56 pm, Harmon Seaver wrote:
>>>    Hey guys, there's an awful lot of 24v inverters out there, and also
>>> some 36v and 48v inverters. Look around. Anybody doing serious off-grid
>>> with batteries and DC does not use 12v -- most any 12v inverter is
>>> bottom of the barrel minor league stuff for truckers and small RV's and
>>> even then most serious truckers and RV's use 24v.
>> 
>> Hi Harmon,
>> 
>> Your correct and they are better because they draw less current but all
seem 
>> to be out of my price range.
>> 
>
>     You need to rethink your basic plan here -- there is zero point in
>investing in inverter stuff for your 36v golfcart battery setup in the
>first place. Those batteries are most likely pretty close to being junk
>at this point anyway. How old are they? If they are even 3-4 years old,
>they are not going to last much longer, so why screw around with the
>whole 36v scenario?
>    These are the common 6v heavy-duty golfcart battery, right? They
>have a life expectency of maybe 5 years if well taken care of, meaning
>they need to be kept watered and charged up at least once a week or so.
>    If you look in any big city newspaper in the Fall, at least in the
>northern states, you will see ads from golfcart companies and
>golfcourses, trying to sell their current stock of used batteries
>because they don't want to try to keep them over the Winter.
>    But you need to figure out a better long-term plan. If things really
>do fall apart, those type of batteries will not do you much good very
>long. The big industrial forklift batteries MIGHT last 10 years, the
>bigger, heavier 2v cell telco batteries might last even 25 years.
>   Yah, that stuff ain't cheap, but... "Penny wise and pound foolish" as
>they say. That's the basic problem with the whole "survival" off-grid
>energy concept based on batteries charged by solar and/wind -- the
>batteries are the weak link, and if you can't replace them, what do you
>have then? Pumping water to a tank uphill and running it back down?
>Making hydrogen?  8-)
>   Maybe better to work on that in the first place if you don't have
>much money. Or maybe better to just get your gasifier built, and start
>collecting small auto engines from junk cars to run your generator. You
>don't need electric 24/7 really. My wife and I lived for 18 years
>off-grid with absolutely no electric at all for the first 12 years.
>Except for a battery for the radio that we charged with the car when we
>went to town. Raised our two kids from babies 'til college that way.
>They laugh at people who don't how to do without the 7-11.
>
>-- 
>Harmon Seaver
>
>_______________________________________________
>Gasification mailing list
>Gasification at listserv.repp.org
>http://listserv.repp.org/mailman/listinfo/gasification_listserv.repp.org
>http://gasifiers.bioenergylists.org
>