>Exide is selling a "recombinant" battery. See www.exideworld.com. How does
>it compare to the recombinant aircraft batteries sold by Concorde and B&C ?
Took a look at this site and it appears that the product
is a descendant of the jelly-roll cells originally
developed and patented over 20 years ago. The cells
were (and still are) marketed under Gate's Energy Products
Cyclon brand for about the past 15 years or more.
When the Gate's patents expired a number of folk
took interest in the technology. When Gates sold
off the battery division, a company in Denver got the
tooling for the big jelly-roll cells while another
company (Hawker I think) took over the litte version.
We use the 2 a.h. cells to this day in our MQM
series targets.
We should expect to see more of the "silo" batteries
to pop up. Exide is a very old and respected name in
rechargable batteries. The technology used in the Orbital
battery is quite mature. These are reasons to believe
their offering is technically near if not at the
top of the heap in the growing field of portable
energy storage devices.
I did get the following from their website:
THE ORBITAL BATTERY IS SENSITIVE TO HIGH VOLTAGE
CHARGING (ABOVE 14.4 VOLTS).THE RECOMMENDATION IS
TO USE A 6 TO 12 AMP, 12 VOLT AUTOMATIC CHARGER SET
AT THE REGULAR SETTING. IF YOU USE A NON- AUTOMATIC
CHARGER, YOU NEED TO MONITOR THE VOLTAGE SO IT
DOES NOT EXCEED 14.4 VOLTS AND/OR 12 AMPS ANYTIME
DURING RECHARGE. THIS BATTERY ONLY NEEDS
RECHARGING IF THE OPEN CIRCUIT VOLTAGE (O.C.V.) IS
BELOW 12.5 VOLTS.
Unlke the Gates-now-Hawker products, their recommendations
are more conservative with respect to care and feeding
of the battery. That 14.4V/12A limit is, I believe,
NOT a red-line where exceeding the values means instant
or even accelerated demise of the battery. In automotive
applications where you are encouraged to flog-it-til-
it-dies, the 14.4/12 limits will optomize service life.
This is NOT an inexpensive battery. Further, it's probably
only offered in automotive sizes (24 a.h. or there-abouts)
so it's not a lightweight. Nor is it going to be in-expensive.
In the grand picture of our need for reliable cranking,
and RESERVE energy storage, I would encourage builders
to think lighter, less expensive and REPLACE based on
capacity than to sink a lot of bux into an expensive,
classy car battery and suffer the temptation to flog-
it-til-it-dies.
I found this tid bit on their website too . . .
Because Exide Select orbital can withstand abuses that kill
conventional batteries, it's a perfect choice for many vehicles,
including classic cars, RVs, boats (starting only), taxis, seasonal
and farm equipment.
. . . an interesting contrast to the charging instructions
cited above. The #1 "abuse" suffered by airplane batteries
is long periods of inattention. The very low self-discharge
rates of EVERYBODY's RG battery makes them less susceptable
to loss in storage. But if one interprets the charging
recommendations paragraph as oh-my-gosh-gospel then I'll
suggest the Exide Orbital is no more rugged than most
other RG products on the market.
Bob . . .
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