Warm Batteries

Please discuss here all your remarks and pose your questions about all racing series, except Formula One. Both technical and other questions about GP2, Touring cars, IRL, LMS, ...
User avatar
greenpower dude reloaded
6
Joined: 29 Dec 2005, 20:03
Location: Portsmouth, UK

Re: Warm Batteries

Post

50degsC+ preferably but certainly no more than 70
______________________________________

marcush.
marcush.
159
Joined: 09 Mar 2004, 16:55

Re: Warm Batteries

Post

of course the batterie needs a vent but you surely can put a tube thru the batterie box for the vent as well...,a lot of batteries have a nipple for the vent already installed so this should be easy..
but then ...
The heat pack thing will eat Oxygen to work anyways ,so the dangerous situation is actually not present then .. :mrgreen:so actually the one thing you ´d need was a blow off valve to avoid unpleasant things happening with the Hydrogen pressure building up..

User avatar
flynfrog
Moderator
Joined: 23 Mar 2006, 22:31

Re: Warm Batteries

Post

What about an electric heating pad. You could bypass the factory contorler with your own.

Carlos
Carlos
11
Joined: 02 Sep 2006, 19:43
Location: Canada

Re: Warm Batteries

Post

Maybe solder a metal box a bit bigger than the battery as a water bath and use an electric immersion heater and thermostat, I'd make it portable, so you could use it at the track. It doesn't sound too expensive, heating elements are usually in hardware and home-reno stores. For the box you could use light galvanized sheet.
http://www.omega.ca/prodinfo/immersionheaters.html

marcush.
marcush.
159
Joined: 09 Mar 2004, 16:55

Re: Warm Batteries

Post

In all honesty ,the water tank thing is surely going to keep you busy ,batteries out of the car immersing into hot water tank ,back into car as late as possible....wow much heat is lost during the mounting ,how much is lost in pregrid....I´d say this is not going to give you consistency .
I think there are two possible ways really right now.
Heat mats -builda very well isolated -thermobottle like housing for the batteries in the car and install the heat mats intonto this housing.keep the mats connected to a
outward power supply (12V?) as long as feasible and rely on the good insulation to keep the heat in the batterie
Build more open batterie tray and attach ironpowder type heatpads around the whole
batterie .this will heat the batterie for about a good 6 hours in normal atmosphere
key is to allow air to reach a big surface of the heat pads to make them work .

I´d go for the second possibility at this point,because:
as it causes minimum extra fuzz at the track it may go unnoticed for quite a while,
it is low on expenses ,readily available,and it will heat the batteries during competition.
The isolated box with electric heat mats or water tank has the major drawbacks
of:
lots of fabrication -Time is money!
heat source has to be disconnected for the competition ,so the temps and capacity of the batts is degrading before the flag even dropped! you have no possibilities
to keep the temp level when competition is delayed..
you are feeding the car with an outward energy source...
It is going to cause a stirr with the competition they will look at the technique very detailed just to make sure you are not charging the batts and worst of all :they will follow easily...

User avatar
greenpower dude reloaded
6
Joined: 29 Dec 2005, 20:03
Location: Portsmouth, UK

Re: Warm Batteries

Post

ARGH I just wrote a massive post and lost it!

I had looked at the water tank in the first instance but haven't yet found a container to put them in, I'm keeping my eyes peeled.

Marcush heat pads/packs will be fine on the day to maintain temperature but I'm not 100% sure that they will be enough to heat the core of the battery, It took all day and all night yesterday for the reptile pad to make a difference to the battery as they are just so dense. A water bath should make a much more effective way of heating right the way through to the core.

The water bath would however only be used at home before leaving.

Once heated through we could remove from the water bath, surround with heat packs and charge.

Then use things like heatpacks and a 12v electric blanket i have, until scrutineering on the day of the race. They are so dense it would take a day or so for them to cool again, plus the race is only 1.5hrs.
______________________________________

marcush.
marcush.
159
Joined: 09 Mar 2004, 16:55

Re: Warm Batteries

Post

this reignites the idea of heating up the Batteriewater itself to get the heat directly into the batts....
How much in terms of temperature slope do you see after heating up that thing?

or take a electric Kitchenoven set it for the desired temp and put the batteries inside overnight this way you get them cosy warm from all sides ,not just from below ..only thing necessary would be to have a vent hose to avoid possible gas pockets buildup in the oven...I´m pretty sure the next cake will not suffer too much... :mrgreen:

one last word of caution: How do you make sure not to overheat the batts locally?
or what are your precautions in a thermal event?

User avatar
Ciro Pabón
106
Joined: 11 May 2005, 00:31

Re: Warm Batteries

Post

What about dropping into each cell a coffe heater? Of course, with a shape that enters the cell access hole, instead of the large loop shown in the following picture. I've seen a couple of these that seem to fit in the access hole. You need six of those (if your battery has six cells) and an extension cord with six outlets.

You might have to bend it, looking for a shape that enters the hole without interfering with the top of the plates. I would bend it at 90 degrees, so it enters the hole and is positioned more or less flat on top of the plates, touching them, but keeping the heater immersed in the acid fluid. I don't know if the liquid is deep enough, over the plates, to keep the thing immersed, but you could add a little extra liquid if that's not the case, retiring that extra fluid before closing the battery.

I think it would be fast, cheap, reliable. As you are using six heaters, it'll take 1/6 of the time of heating the liquid with pipes, tank and one heater.

You would be using convection instead of radiation, so you don't have to cope with insulating air or whatever.

You need an external source to heat the thing, but I guess you can use an extension cord from the pit to the grid and keep the heaters inside the batteries up to the moment in which the mechanics have to retire (they take the heaters out, remove the excess liquid, if necessary, put the caps and that's all).

I'd use six thermometers to check the temperature inside each cell and insert/retire the heaters accordingl. You have to create the immensely popular position of "battery heater chief mechanic", ;) for him to avoid boiling the liquid, of course.

Image

PROJECT FOR NEXT YEAR: Build the six heaters integrated into the caps. Power them with the braking power (if enough) and include a thermostat for each one to keep the optimal temperature inside each cell. Who cares about the temperature of the case? What's important for the chemical reactions is the liquid and plate temperature, I guess.

Btw, thanks for calling me a "young man"... :D
Ciro

alexbarwell
alexbarwell
0
Joined: 20 Mar 2008, 14:19
Location: London

Re: Warm Batteries

Post

I know this might sound like the same territory as taking the toaster into the bathroom with you, but...
What if suitable acid-proof piping were plumbed up to each battery and an external heater (or coil round the motor housing?) and pump warmed and circulated the battery acid/electolyte - this would then be quite directly heating at least one half of the cell and more indirectly heating the other. Also creating a flow through the batteries might make for greater and more consistent discharge, although the guess is the life expectancy of the cells would go downhill.
As a concept, maybe a bit of a work-in-progress. Or a truly dumb idea
:wtf:
I am an engineer, not a conceptualist :)

marcush.
marcush.
159
Joined: 09 Mar 2004, 16:55

Re: Warm Batteries

Post

daaa.
the heatercoils directly into the acid water ? You will contaminate the solution with
foreign metallic bits and degrade or ruin the batterie in no time...

Of course you can´t touch the batterie plates with a metallic object ,danger of short
circuit.
The Water just covers the plates in the battery so I´d say this will call for a real tiny small object as heat source,maybe some resistive cable? but still you got the risk of enhancing bridgebuildup and a destroyed battery ...

what about using peltierelements for this ...as a side effect it could cool the beer for the victory at the same time ...

fiddling around with the heaters in pregrid ...I´m not sure I wanted to have this ...
Battery acid is not too strong but slowly it eats thru everything..

complete exchange and filtering of the Acid solution and returning preheated would reduce slug in the bottom of the cells if there is any ....
I´m not sure if you were allowed to customise the batts beyond refilling/maintaining them??

Carlos
Carlos
11
Joined: 02 Sep 2006, 19:43
Location: Canada

Re: Warm Batteries

Post

What about battery additives? Are they Voodoo chemistry? They claim to:
Doubles Battery Life
Increases Charge Acceptance
Increases Discharge (Running) Time
Increases Storage Time
http://www.batteryequaliser.com/
Just Google acid battery additive for more info and product choice/sources in your locale.

User avatar
Ciro Pabón
106
Joined: 11 May 2005, 00:31

Re: Warm Batteries

Post

marcush. wrote:daaa.
the heatercoils directly into the acid water ? You will contaminate the solution with
foreign metallic bits and degrade or ruin the batterie in no time...
Good point. You have to cover them with acid resistant plastic tubing that doesn't melt at 100 degrees. That's all: no shorts, no contamination.
Ciro

User avatar
tarzoon
0
Joined: 17 May 2006, 19:53
Location: White and blue football club

Re: Warm Batteries

Post

Carlos wrote:What about battery additives? Are they Voodoo chemistry? They claim to:
Doubles Battery Life
Increases Charge Acceptance
Increases Discharge (Running) Time
Increases Storage Time
http://www.batteryequaliser.com/
Just Google acid battery additive for more info and product choice/sources in your locale.
In competitions you're not meant to change the battery chemistry. So I don't really know if that's possible.

User avatar
ISLAMATRON
0
Joined: 01 Oct 2008, 18:29

Re: Warm Batteries

Post

What are those chemical packs in MRE's that get extremely hot whean you add water to them? Could try those.

*magnesium dust... is it hard to get a hold of these days?

User avatar
hollus
Moderator
Joined: 29 Mar 2009, 01:21
Location: Copenhagen, Denmark

Re: Warm Batteries

Post

Hmmm, I'll risk total ridiculization here, I am no car engineer, do not race cars and do not even have a driver's license...
I work in biochemistry labs and we often have the same problem... in reverse: how to keep a big block of several kilos about 20 degrees under room temperature, that is, how to cross the city or the country and keep our samples at 4C. Sounds the same to me as keeping something at 45C. Our trick, a sealed Styrofoam box. We recycle the ones where products came in, fill them with lots of inert mass, all of it at 4C and then we put our sample in. Fit the lid more or less well, add tape if you are paranoid, and viola! 4C or close for hours. To cool things down, we simply keep them in whole rooms that are at 4C until we need them, in your case I guess that could be the kitchen oven overnight? If you carve a box that fits your battery exactly you will get very good insulation and a battery heated to 65C in the morning should be well above 50C in the evening, plus, you can put the full construction in the racing car. Styrofoam occupies space, but has virtually no weight.
Rivals, not enemies.