“Charged and dry” in a purchase specification can describe two different batteries, a dry-charged one and a moist-charged battery, and the difference decides how long it may wait and what the site must do. Both travel without acid, which is why buyers in hot climates and at the end of long sea routes ask for … Read more
A vent plug is the one deliberate hole in a lead-acid battery, and a good deal of design goes into what it lets out and what it keeps out. This post explains the vent plugs of flooded cells and the valves of sealed ones, using Linden’s Handbook of Batteries, Crompton’s Battery Reference Book and a … Read more
A lead-acid battery’s container is a structural part, a viewing window and a fire-behaviour decision, and most buyers never ask what it is made of. This post collects what four reference works say about container and lid materials, with the honest limits. We draw on Linden’s Handbook of Batteries, Crompton’s Battery Reference Book, Dell and … Read more
A battery behind a UPS does not discharge at a steady current; it discharges at a roughly steady power, and that changes how it should be sized and tested. The difference is easy to miss on a datasheet that lists only ampere-hours. We draw on Linden’s chapter on factors affecting battery performance and on a … Read more
A dry-charged battery is a charged battery with its acid taken out, and that one change lets a battery travel and wait without going flat. It is useful, it is not universal, and it passes a job to whoever receives the battery. This post explains the idea, outlines what activation involves, and lists what a … Read more
A lead-acid battery on charge can make heat in three different ways, and only some of them are faults. A battery that is slightly warm at the end of a normal charge is not alarming; a battery that is hotter than last month, or one cell that is hotter than its neighbours, is telling you … Read more
A replacement forklift battery fits only if several things match the truck, and the ampere-hour figure on its own is the least useful of them. When a battery reaches the end of its life, the quickest quotation is the one that copies the old battery’s plate, and the quickest way to a wrong battery is … Read more
A mine locomotive battery cannot be sized from the locomotive’s model name; it is sized from a duty cycle, and most enquiries reach us without one. We build lead-acid traction batteries for underground machines, so this post sets out the eight things a battery maker needs to know, in the order they usually matter. It … Read more
Opportunity charging means plugging a traction battery into the charger whenever the truck pauses; done by design it can save a spare battery and a battery change, and done by habit it can wear the battery out early. We build lead-acid traction batteries, and we publish where charging in the breaks helps, because the answer … Read more
A station battery is bought once and judged for twenty-five years, so the construction you write into the specification matters more than the price on the first invoice. Three constructions compete for the DC systems of nuclear power stations and grid substations: the Planté cell that started the industry in 1860, the vented pocket-plate nickel-cadmium … Read more