"North of $100" - I just paid $299 for a battery for a BMW. Shelf price was $340. Also, try buying a roll of lead flashing at Bunnings.
Thanks for posting this. I'm the poster of that motor rewinding video, and this was fascinating.
See also
http://everist.org/NobLog/20180430_lead_acid_ruin.htm>1. Zero protective equipment - no gloves, open sandals, no breathing protection (the fan can be seen spinning at one point, blowing fumes into the street).
What did you expect? Actually I think a few stages are not shown in the video, like washing out the acid initially. He's not handling full strength battery acid soaked plates with his bare hands.
Exposed melting of lead is not too bad. After all, we do it all the time with solder.
>2. Washing cell debris into an area of gravel. It doesn't show what happened to the bulk of the Sulphuric acid.
The video skips a LOT of 'worst bits'. Also what happens to the old lead plates?
>3. Solid plates, no grids and paste (can't see the construction of plates already in the envelopes)
Well that's typical of garden variety lead acid cells everywhere.
The big question is, where'd the new plates come from? Really he's only reusing the battery casing. Everything else is new.
Somewhere there's a whole industry refining the old plates down, and forming new plates. There's some very tricky alchemy with trace elements alloyed in the plates, for optimal performance. I wonder if they are doing that or not?
>4. No re-sealing of the partitions between the cells (no containment of explosive gasses to individual cells), just relying on electrolyte level for cell separation.
Oh well. It will work. Just don't tilt the battery.
>5. Interesting but dodgy looking forming of plate tabs
Actually I thought that was pretty clever.
>6. De-burring the edges of the plates with a simple file (more dust)
Hmm, wasn't that during the disassembly of the old plates?
>7. Uncontrolled open heating of molten Lead.
Kids used to know how to melt lead in tin cans on open fireplaces, pouring it into sand molds. I did anyway.
The important thing is to be careful with the lead oxide. Don't breath the dust, wash your hands after.
>8. A very dodgy looking welder / soldering iron.
I thought that was very cool. Did you recognise the 'red glowing rod'? That's the carbon rod pulled out of a dead carbon-zinc dry cell. Probably a D-size one. For melting lead connecting tabs together, that's a great idea. Minimal materials, near zero cost 'soldering iron.'
>9. Very scary (sparky) charging method (especially with plugs out to facilitate rapid gassing!)
What, do you expect him to spend money to buy new cable lugs? When just whacking it does the job?
>10. I guess the original internals will get recycled by similarly scary methods (high temperature melt-down back to pure-ish lead).
Somewhere else. Might even be state of the art. Who knows?
>11. Packing out the gaps between the plates and cell walls with wadding.
But of course. The new packs are not exactly the right size, so something has to hold the plates together.
>12. [Edit: The re-sealing method]
Next time I have to rejoin some injection-molded plastic parts, I'm going to try that. Just set it on fire!
>13. I wonder what his life expectancy is!
He's already reached a ripe old age. Does he know or care? Or have a choice? It's a shitty world.
Some years ago I was in China for a while. Passed a small welding shop guy, arc welding on the street front with absolutely no eye protection. I don't know how he wasn't blind within a day. Skin cancer within a month. But he'd obviously been doing it for decades.
Here he'd be in trouble just for exposing passers by to the arc light.
Home
Help
Search
Login
Register
