Power cuts = no transport

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Grumpy-b
Posts: 991
Joined: Sat Dec 01, 2007 12:06 pm

Power cuts = no transport

Postby Grumpy-b » Tue Oct 29, 2013 1:29 pm

In over 5 years of using EVs I have now been stopped, not by battery failures, or blown controllers, or even by a simple puncture, but by a so far 28hour power cut. I dont live in a remote wilderness but just over the border from Essex into Suffolk.
But on the bright side I get to use my 1kw 12v Inverter that I use to bleed down cells to well, bleed down cells, for the purpose of keeping the freezer alive and the all important Router happy. As to moble phones, they have been out for just over a day now, presumably their battery backups having failed very quickly.
This has really brought home the fragility of our power network. We do however get loads of 1 to 4 hour cuts through the winter, but this is the worst I have known in 20+ Years. So its roll out the 12v ring to more of the house and sort out a way of swapping the inverter supply onto the aga and woodburner supply, so at least we can have heat. My economy 7 (Cheap) water heating obviously having failed to to up last night, we are now down to propane heater water via kettles (We dont have mains gas)

Grumpy-b

Grumpy-b
Posts: 991
Joined: Sat Dec 01, 2007 12:06 pm

Re: Power cuts = no transport

Postby Grumpy-b » Wed Oct 30, 2013 6:44 pm

It took 32 hours to get us back on to power, but a day later Orange, or Nothing anywhere stil cant get a moble signal for a large area around here. But at least the car got charged last night and most normality has been restored.Still I should be able to get loads of wood for the centtral heating, some good out of this at least.

Grumpy-b

mattcarr
Posts: 389
Joined: Sat May 12, 2007 2:27 pm
Location: Hampshire

Re: Power cuts = no transport

Postby mattcarr » Tue Nov 05, 2013 10:10 am

Wow, now that is a long old power outage. We had one a couple of years back, and I ran my small invertor off the citroen 12v battery for a few hours to keep my router alive as well.

Sort of a side bonus being able to get plenty of fire wood from the storm.

Grumpy-b
Posts: 991
Joined: Sat Dec 01, 2007 12:06 pm

Re: Power cuts = no transport

Postby Grumpy-b » Tue Nov 05, 2013 10:51 am

We are sort of used to it, when its windy we lose power. Probably three or four times ayear, for a couple of hours, this was the longest Ive known in 20+ years. Still it just convinces me to spread the internal12v supply further, its developing into a distributed 12v ring mian with a number of battery packs near to items of higher load. Next to go on is the two strings of spots in the kitchen, that will be even better as they have been LED for a couple of years and the mains transformer plays havoc with the transistor radio reception. My Central heating (Oil aga and Woodburner) all neads power to run, so thats now separated via a 13amp plug and socket from the main consumer unit, so it can be unplugged and plugged onto the inverter. Strangely the central heating pump gave out an awful noise when on the invertor, guess it doesnt like that wave form.
Looking around we have so many things that already run on 12v dc, The Router, the NAS Drive connected to it, the freeview box, and Ive already got a small adaptor for my netbook to runn that from the 12v car supply. I just need a larger 12v solar array than my old 160w set up (20W panels) that originally went up to supply my home made Solar hot water system (Low tech works great and I built the roof with 6m2 of glass rather than tiles so all the kit is accessible from inside the roof).
So the storm may have spurned me on to greater things, just need more of me to do them all.
Grumpy-b

pernodjim
Posts: 1
Joined: Wed Nov 20, 2013 10:32 pm

Re: Power cuts = no transport

Postby pernodjim » Thu Nov 21, 2013 9:09 pm

Have you heard of the Maslow (hierarchy of needs) unit produced by Moxia Media:http://www.moixatechnology.com/category/battery-systems-maslow-.php

Sounds like it would be just the ticket for your setup.

I'm saving up for one myself at the moment, so I can be ready for the brown outs in 2015, trouble is this electric car business looks expensive so it may have to wait . . .

Jim

Grumpy-b
Posts: 991
Joined: Sat Dec 01, 2007 12:06 pm

Re: Power cuts = no transport

Postby Grumpy-b » Thu Nov 21, 2013 9:43 pm

I have quite a few thundersky 160ah cells that are not able to fully perform to original spec, but they will do probably 100ah with no problems, I dont need high c rating so they will probably work really well. lifepo4 work so much better with deep discharge than Lead acid and with a much longer life, but not if you constantly use them at the full rating ie if you expect a 100ah to deliver constantly at 3c, the they wont last long, but will last forever at 1c or less. (well not forever , but a happy and long life) Thrash you 1ltr turbo mini at 100mph and it wont last as long as a 2ltr Diesel or a 4ltr v8.

With the world demand for Lifepo4 and Lion cells for electric cars not reaching the demand that Chinese makers were expecting, many are already switching to stored power systems, especially great with wind or Solar power.
Up on the Norfolk coast near Hemsby there has been a stored power trial going on for a few years. There is a small clutch of wind turbines on a long (and slender) arm of the grid, so this setup allows the locally produced power to be stored and used when required. The fact the grid is less than robust no longer matters. This approach is now being taken all over the world. Nissan are using ex leaf cells as solar storage, not attempting to use full original Ah of the cells, but down rating them, they then use the stored energy to feed directly to fast chargers, as even in a downgraded state they can deliver more current than the grid (Unless its a big supply). A great use ofthe cells and prolonging their active life.

Grumpy-b

berlingoian
Posts: 53
Joined: Mon Mar 03, 2014 12:00 am

Re: Power cuts = no transport

Postby berlingoian » Mon Mar 10, 2014 9:09 pm

Good news!
I'm glad not to be the only one tenuously on grid and gearing up for the inevitible. We have rayburn and villager wood burning, entirly fueled by storm damage :-)

Grumpy-b
Posts: 991
Joined: Sat Dec 01, 2007 12:06 pm

Re: Power cuts = no transport

Postby Grumpy-b » Tue Mar 11, 2014 8:42 am

I have recently started piecing the components together for a stored Solar power system, using partially depleted traction cells, and an inverter. The idea being to store as much power as possible so that a charge of a vehicle could take place from the solar / stored energy. I have just over 1kw of commercial panels, and it will probably end up with a 48v inverter. The higher voltage commercial cells working nicely with the 48v pack.
By going to 48v with a number of cells in parallel that will help with keeping the inconsistent cells in a decent working range. With a lot of cells the need to have each cell fully charged for maximum storage is also taken away. So cells with perhaps 80% capacity will be more than usefull.
Unfortuanately even 1+kw takes quite an area, so it may well become a car port / charging bay.
Fun project but one that will have to wait for gaps in work etc.
We have also benefited from the storms and just finished taking most of the limbs off a cedar that fell over in our church grounds. The lord giveth, and we taketh away.

Grumpy-b

berlingoian
Posts: 53
Joined: Mon Mar 03, 2014 12:00 am

Re: Power cuts = no transport

Postby berlingoian » Tue Mar 18, 2014 9:09 am

That's interesting. When I bought the blingo last june, part of the calculation was the not very well thought out plan of using its traction batteries as solar energy storage when they ultimately gave up. I wasn't expecting it to be so soon :-(
We have a ground mounted grid tied system which produces more than we use, but not neccasarily when we want it ;-)

Grumpy-b
Posts: 991
Joined: Sat Dec 01, 2007 12:06 pm

Re: Power cuts = no transport

Postby Grumpy-b » Tue Mar 18, 2014 1:08 pm

Blingo 6v cells tend not to just lose capacity, but tend to have one or more of the internal 1.2v cells short out/fail, so giving a much lower voltage. Lifepo4, tend to lose capacity and each cell is a cell in its own righ so a totally failed cell isnt part of the Monobloc like the SAFT Nicad.

Grumpy-b


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