Gell Batteries

[David Tilston]

I have not paid much attention to discussions involving gell batteries in the past. They just cost too much. But recently I have come across some cheep, (free). Gel batteries in 55, 65, and 75 Ahr sizes. They are not new, but in really good shape.
I have two 95 Ahr group 24 batteries on the tongue of my trailer. Since they produce hydrogen, when charging, keeping them outside makes sense. But it is my understanding that gel batteries do not do this. Is this true?
I would like to locate one of the gel batteries under the gaucho, right beside the 1000w inverter ($35) that will power my 700w microwave ($40). I have tested this arraignment in my basement, and it works.
I plan to parallel the gel battery with the two other batteries on my tongue. The point of this is so I can run short #2 wires between the gel battery and the inverter, while still charging it from the tow vehicle.
I would also like to install one of the gel batteries inside my van. This would be an accessory battery for the TV and sound system, for when the engine is not running.
Please comment on the advisability, or not, of this plan.

[Thomas G.]

What I want to know is how you get all these bargains.

[Raz]

I played with gel cells years ago. I had a couple of 7 AHr batteries i used for lighting when the power went out. As I recall I had to build a constant current source to charge them. Raz

[Brian B-P]

Originally Posted by David Tilston

I have two 95 Ahr group 24 batteries on the tongue of my trailer. Since they produce hydrogen, when charging, keeping them outside makes sense. But it is my understanding that gel batteries do not do this. Is this true?

Valve-Regulated Lead Acid batteries - which includes gel and AGM types - do produce hydrogen like any lead-acid battery, but they keep it contained inside the battery and re-absorb it later. The valve only releases anything if the pressure gets too high; it is a safety release and should never let anything out in normal operation.

[Byron Kinnaman]

I have one of the those recycled 50 amp hour gel batteries. I'm not sure I would want to charge it with tow vehicle. The charge rate might be way too high and cause it to overhear or safety valve to release.
I charge mine with my solar panel. The charge controller has a setting for sealed batteries, which limits the maximum voltage the battery is charged to. Since I'm only charging with 4 amps all works well.

The alternator system of a vehicle is designed to charge rapidly. Here's an example, when I got back after 3 months the group 24 cranking battery of my second vehicle was completely discharged. I removed the battery and connected it to my tow vehicle. Started the tow and within 1/2 that dead battery had a full charge. That's a pretty rapid charge rate. Be careful.

A better solution is to reduce your power usage or always stay at a place with electrical hookups. Reducing power usage isn't that difficult. We have been out for over 3 months at time the last 3 years. Total time with hookups about 7 nights spread over those 3 years. Battery - on 74 amp battery.

Sometimes it's a good idea to separate wants from needs.

[David Tilston]

Originally Posted by Thomas G.

What I want to know is how you get all these bargains.

I shop kijiji mostly. The 1000W inverter I got for $35 was exactly like this one:
XANTREX Power inverter 1000W - Edmonton Parts, Accessories For Sale - Kijiji Edmonton Canada.
but rarely, I buy new. The microwave was on sale at Walmart for $40. I bought two.
-In the case of the batteries, my brother works at a company that has several divisions. One division does stair chair lifts, wheel chair elevators, handicap scooters and wheel chairs. When someone's wheel chair run out of power, they call my brothers company, and when they get there, they change the battery. This battery may not have anything wrong with it, other then it is half discharged. Since they don't sell used batteries, they throw them away. Two of the batteries had demo written on them. Of the 9 gel batteries that they were disposing of, two had a voltage of ~4 VDC, so I left them there. The others were between 12.1 and 12.4VDC. So I took them home. After charging them with my 2A battery charger, I tested them with a battery tester. One is mediocre, but the rest are in good shape.
They also have a pallet of 7 Ahr batteries, from stair chair lifts, I think. At least half of the ones I tested were over 13VDC. What a waste!
There are at least three such companies in Calgary, and probably at least one in every city over 100000. That is a lot of wasted batteries.

[Brian B-P]

David, are those really gel batteries? I would expect the applications which you listed - particularly the scooters and wheelchairs - to have AGM batteries. The risk of charging too rapidly with AGM is much lower than with gel.

[Denece]

We lived with solar and gel cell power for 8 years full time on our sailboat. They actually will take 14v when cold. We had a temperature compensated Morningstar controller. Make sure your controller has a setting for gel cells, or whatever type of battery you use. Each battery has its own preferences
We went gel for our battery in our Compact II, it is inside under the bed. It is charged by a roof mounted 20W panel ( all LED lights, socket to charge phones and iPads on mini-inverter). We are pretty minimalist.
We have no concern about hydrogen.
Congrats on your great find. The only drawback to gel is the initial price. We have had some last over 13 years and still going strong

[David Tilston]

These are the three sizes that I have.

I did a search on the biggest ones model number:
http://www.solarwyse.ca/batteries.html
http://dekavista.com/pages/duracell_specs.pdf

I went again today. Four more batteries to test.

[David Tilston]

So, what I am picking up from the discussion is that as long as I take care to charge the batteries at a low amperage, and the correct voltage, then I am correct that they should be OK to use inside the trailer, or the van.
Please correct me if I am wrong.

[Raz]

Originally Posted by P. Raz

I played with gel cells years ago. I had a couple of 7 AHr batteries i used for lighting when the power went out. As I recall I had to build a constant current source to charge them. Raz

This is incorrect. It's NiCads that I was thinking of. The gel cells were voltage charged.

[Ed Harris]

David

In addition to the different charging requirements that the new batteries may have,it is rarely a good idea to have mixed battery types wired together in a circuit delivering your power as well as being charged together.

There are even chargers sold that take this into account and offer different charge rate and type selection for more than 1 battery bank on a vehicle and this is what I would try to use and in fact what I do use.

Merely connecting batteries in parallel can be a bad choice even with batteries that should appear identical from the label,most batteries will be slightly different and the parallel connection provides both the charging performance and output delivery of the weakest battery from both of them as they are not isolated from each other at all.

Tis is why a battery isolator is used in a vehicle with multiple batteries usually so each can both work and be charged with little effect on the other.

There is a lot of good info out there about this and I would research it a lot more before going here even though the batteries were free.

Also all batteries can and will discharge gas when improperly charged.
Mixing battery types in a trailer being charged together could almost guarantee that some of them will not be charged properly,not a setup I would suggest.

[David Tilston]

It would seem that these batteries are better suited for a solar install. So, anyone in the Calgary area who would like one cheep, (free) please contatct me. I will not ship them.

[David Tilston]

OK, I went with a volt meter this time. I had to return four of the small batteries that were really low voltage. I took all the batteries on the skid that were 55 Ahr, (2), 65 Ahr, (4), or 75 Ahr, (7) and a few 35 Ahr non jel batteries. Every one that was over 12 VDC.
I will stop now. I am just finding it difficult to cope with the obvious wasted resource. I have tested the batteries with my handy dandy Princess Auto, analog battery tester:
6/12V Battery Tester | Princess Auto

It can't be hooked up backwards. It doesn’t care. 50A,... OK what ever, I'm not going to calibrate it. It smells funny when you use it too much. When the only button is pushed it loads for thirty seconds, (also not confirmed), but is still reading voltage. Of the batteries recovered, the worst one dropped from 12.5 ish to 11.5 ish. over the course of about thirty seconds. Seems acceptable to me.

So, what I want to know is how, in this reduce, renew, recycle world is this allowed to happen? I mean, this is real value being completely wasted. We recycle the mountain of paper that is as waste goes, inert, if not beneficial. But we just callously toss literally tons of lead, a less benign substance. Yeah, I know it all gets recycled, buy why recycle perfectly good batteries. This is the first that I have looked into this, I doubt that this is an isolated event.
OK, I get it from a business perspective. There will be no profit margin, and it would compete with your bread and butter business, ain’t nobody got time for that.
There should be some way to divert resources from the waste stream.
Another example, also from my brothers company. They have to pay $50 a ton to dispose of dunnage, the wood that big stuff is packed with. He now knows to separate out the oak for our Friday night fires. That stuff burns HOT! I also get it from Engineered Air, a large roof mounted air conditioner manufacture. They have bins outside their gate. All their excess dunnage goes in them. They even cut it up into 16” lengths sometimes. I get 8' lengths of 4x4 oak. I could easily heat my house all winter long on the wood that I take home in the poop fly. Most of it goes to keeping me and my brother warm while we drink beer around a really big, really hot, fire. The police helicopter usually fly’s directly over my house at least once every Friday.

[Byron Kinnaman]

Originally Posted by David Tilston

OK, I went with a volt meter this time. I had to return four of the small batteries that were really low voltage. I took all the batteries on the skid that were 55 Ahr, (2), 65 Ahr, (4), or 75 Ahr, (7) and a few 35 Ahr non jel batteries. Every one that was over 12 VDC.
I will stop now. I am just finding it difficult to cope with the obvious wasted resource. I have tested the batteries with my handy dandy Princess Auto, analog battery tester:
6/12V Battery Tester | Princess Auto

It can't be hooked up backwards. It doesn’t care. 50A,... OK what ever, I'm not going to calibrate it. It smells funny when you use it too much. When the only button is pushed it loads for thirty seconds, (also not confirmed), but is still reading voltage. Of the batteries recovered, the worst one dropped from 12.5 ish to 11.5 ish. over the course of about thirty seconds. Seems acceptable to me.

So, what I want to know is how, in this reduce, renew, recycle world is this allowed to happen? I mean, this is real value being completely wasted. We recycle the mountain of paper that is as waste goes, inert, if not beneficial. But we just callously toss literally tons of lead, a less benign substance. Yeah, I know it all gets recycled, buy why recycle perfectly good batteries. This is the first that I have looked into this, I doubt that this is an isolated event.
OK, I get it from a business perspective. There will be no profit margin, and it would compete with your bread and butter business, ain’t nobody got time for that.
There should be some way to divert resources from the waste stream.
Another example, also from my brothers company. They have to pay $50 a ton to dispose of dunnage, the wood that big stuff is packed with. He now knows to separate out the oak for our Friday night fires. That stuff burns HOT! I also get it from Engineered Air, a large roof mounted air conditioner manufacture. They have bins outside their gate. All their excess dunnage goes in them. They even cut it up into 16” lengths sometimes. I get 8' lengths of 4x4 oak. I could easily heat my house all winter long on the wood that I take home in the poop fly. Most of it goes to keeping me and my brother warm while we drink beer around a really big, really hot, fire. The police helicopter usually fly’s directly over my house at least once every Friday.

These batteries probably came from some electronic operation like cell towers, server farms, etc. Because it's very very costly for some places to stop functioning the back up batteries are replaced every 2 years. It's cheaper than taking the risk of not functioning when needed.
Some of the companies near here simply gather up the used ones every 4 or 5 years and send off to be recycled. Some times they will sell them or give them away earlier. This is great for us that use batteries. I have used about 3 of the cast offs, 1 I killed by over charging too fast. 1 I used it until it wouldn't hold a charge, about 3 years. and 1 I'm still using as a back up to the house battery and to run ham radio gear.

[Ed Harris]

Exactly as Byron says,we Hams all use these batteries and they are a great resource for our applications for sure.
They are also free usually which appeals to the "Cheap Ham" in each of us,any Hams here know what I mean!

The problem or challenge for you application David is not the quality or still usefull life span of these batteries but again it is using them in a system with other batteries in a system.

If you build a small Solar setup for the trailer and charge these batteries with it then you can have useful power when not camping with shore power.

By using a simple A/B battery switch backwards you can easily power the trailer from either your current house batteries OR the Solar setup batteries and all you will need to do is use big wire through it all and keep it as short as possible.

Another thing I have done is use 2 75ah gel cells like yours on a snall wheeled cart charged by Solar and/or shore power. I can power the trailer with it or a big radio station or an inverter and I use it all the time for all sorts of power I need,it is ust almost oo heavy to move!

Just like the wood you mention there are a lot of uses for those batteries if you just research it a little.

I can promise you a call to your local Ham Radio club would get them "Recycled" right away and they will not be disposed of either!

Ed

[David Tilston]

Originally Posted by Byron Kinnaman

These batteries probably came from some electronic operation like cell towers, server farms, etc.

No, I am pretty sure they came from wheel chairs. As mentioned in my original post. I got them from a company that sells and services handicap scooters, wheel chairs, and chair lifts for stairs. The fact that many of the batteries say Medichair on the side is also evidence of this. They have many different sizes, from the same batteries used in break a way controllers, (5 Ahr?) to the 75 Ahr gel batteries. About half of the ones I tested the voltage on were over 12 VDC.

Clearly there are limitations to them. So, what are the advantages of gel batteries?

I will think on this some more. So far,only one response on the free battery offer. I have four trailers that I will put solar on eventually.
If I get more, then I will probably give the local HAM club a call.
I have a real problem with waste.

[Ed Harris]

David

I am guessing that you can understand the reasoning behind a WheelChair company replacing them whether they need them to or not when they reach a certain age?

Like Byron said it is cheaper than leaving them in place and suffering the results just in the name of the cost,don't you think?

I also imagine that there are plenty of people in WheelChairs that do not have the luxury of doing this and that might well be one certain spot to try to recycle the ones you get.

In general a Gel Cell has advantages in an environment where they will need to be mounted sideways or upside down as the Gelled Electrolyte will not run out as it will with traditional flooded electrolyte batteries.

They also have an output curve that is an advantage in some applications and they are more expensive and not able to be maintained which makes more money for the manufacturer!

It is really a question of using whichever battery you choose in an optimum manner when charging and discharging and really they are all more alike than different.

I also think it will cost money to have them recycled in a lot of cases so finding alternative applications for them is a good idea from every way you look at it.

I have 4-75ah batteries that came from a huge industrial UPS power system where like the chair power would be catastrophic if they failed while in that use. So my Ham club took all 42 of them when offered and all we had to do was go get them,and carry them out!

We will happily take every one we can get ad use them until they die and then find more so they can certainly be used somewhere. Building a solar system for a trailer will be a lot cheaper if you don't have to buy the batteries so I would look into that if I were you.

Ed

[Thomas G.]

I notice lots of UPS systems for cheap on Craigslist that "just need a new battery". Maybe these could be matched with old UPS set ups.

[David Tilston]

I also acquired a large UPS for free. Same situation. My company would rather buy a new one, than replace the batteries. I paid $130 for two new batteries for it. That was a deal at the time. The UPS also happens to have an external battery plug for 24VDC. I guess two of the batteries could be used there.