Battery "Conditioning" - Any supporting information?
This thread is to discuss the "conditioning" procedure that usatracy has referenced from amplepower here: http://www.amplepower.com/primer/break-in/index.html
While the procedure sounds interesting, I don't see any evidence to support it. It may be unnecessary and offer no specific advantages except one. I agree with the short period of overcharge of a new battery to help equalize the cells. Overcharging lead-acid batteries is not a new or novel concept. It is done occasionally with flooded lead-acid to equalize the cells, and batteries within a battery pack. Electrolyte can be replaced easily in flooded lead-acid batteries. However, the electrolyte of AGM batteries is not so easily replaced---doing this is not recommended by any manufacturer. So it is not advisable to overcharge AGM batteries, except maybe once when new in a controlled manner for a short duration, and under special circumstances to try and rejuvenate dead batteries.
I may be the first to admit that I just don't know enough about lead-acid batteries to confirm or refute the claim that the surface area of the plates (electrodes) can be increased or decreased with the nature of a discharge/recharge cycle. And additionally, that this increased surface area will noticeably effect battery performance.
In any case, I just don't see any evidence or testing to support or quantify any benefits offered by this "conditioning" procedure. And I haven't seen any lead-acid battery manufacturer service manuals mention doing any "conditioning" procedure like this on new batteries.
I am always skeptical, and try and maintain an objective perspective. Anyone can recommend any procedure in good faith. But without evidence and documentation to support it, than there is no way to know what the practical benefits are, or quantify them. In other words, it's anyone's guess.
Can anyone find any documentation to support this procedure? Any manufacturer recommendations? Any technical papers? Any research or testing data?
In any case, I just don't see any evidence or testing to support or quantify any benefits offered by this "conditioning" procedure.
Well there used to be so many graphs, pictures, data posted... usatracy had a sinus hiccup and deleted them all.
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I work at a electric dealership selling Zap Xebras among other electric vehicles. The Xebras which use Discover AGM batteries gain miles and some speed after more use. This is mostly observational but its consistent between 10+ vehicles. The gains in battery brake in stop at the 500 mile mark for the Zaps. All the manufacturers cite battery brake in. This may be to cover up an under performing product. Meyers which makes the NMG (corbin sparrow) drives each car 300 miles before delivery to ensure the customer can drive the advertised spec.
My only numbers evidence I've gotten around to doing is driving the same car around to nearly fully drained and putting it on a killawatt meter. I would put it to charge and read the meter the next day. A car would start out around 3-4kwh then after being cycled enough eventually settles to 7kwh.
I don't know any better -- other than the general wisdom is to take it easy on the battery pack the first few charge cycles.
I wanted to pass along this posting on the Xebra_EV list on Yahoo!Groups.
http://autos.groups.yahoo.com/group/Xebra_EV/message/13506
It was posted by Aerowhatt, a member of the old V (V.com) who has a lot of battery experience. When he says 'The guy on V is for voltage' that's usatracy
Help a brotha out?
Let's say I use natural electricity. ;) I have a string of four 12-volt batteries supplying 48 volts to [whatever]. I have a wind genny rated to charge 48-volts. I know eventually this setup is going to kill one of the first batteries in this string. I don't want that.
Would it be cheaper for me to have a 12-volt wind genny at 4x power and set it up to charge each battery as 12-volts, instead of the 48-volt genny charging a string of the four batteries?
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Artic, not sure if you were serious or not, but coming from the RE side of things it would be far cheaper to go with a 48v wind genny and somehow eq the batteries once in a while. Most of the people running 24 or 48v banks are running on 6v batteries (3 cells each) some are running 12v batteries and some are running the big HUP 2v. They are nice, 2volts at 1000+ amps... Anyway they rarely worry about balancing between batteries, but do check them against each other. I believe in larger true deep cycle batteries or the same age, make and production run they are so close people rarely have issues with battery imbalance. Again I think this goes back to the standards the batteries are built to as well as the loading on RE banks tends to be in listed in days, typically 3-5 days to 50%. So the discharge is very low compared to the discharge on EV's where you can use the whole battery in an hour. And again RE systems rarely hit 50% most shoot for 75% remaining before recharging, and from everything I have read the damage is really magnified when the batteries are drained to empty or below 50% regularly.
Here is a good read on batteries
http://www.windsun.com/Batteries/Battery_FAQ.htm
Artic, not sure if you were serious or not
Thanks Brok, I was. And you were just the person I was hoping would answer when I asked that question. :)
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I admit that was basically where all of my info came from when I started looking at it. I would love to see some more info either way though. It just made sense from what little I knew about batteries and I had heard anecdotal evidence from people so I decided to give it a try.