Battery (electric)

“ The electrical battery—and experiments performed with it. When a greater degree of electric force is required than a single jar is capable of giving, the electrical battery is made use of as part of the apparatus, which takes its name from the formidable effects it produces. This battery consists of a number of coated jars, placed in such a manner that they may all be charged at the same time, and discharged in an instant; so that the whole force of electricity accumulated in them, may at once be exerted on the substance exposed to the shock. ”

“ Five dry battery cells would very readily heat a short piece of fine wire to a sufficiently high temperature to explode the mixture, but it is impossible to alternately heat and cool a wire twelve times a second. It is too slow an operation. The only other method known at present is to imitate the lightning and force an electric current against the resistance of the air with sufficient power to produce the required heat. This, however, requires an extremely high voltage—at least 5000 volts, and our battery of five cells has not more than seven and a half volts of pressure. ”

“ Of course batteries can be charged from any electric lighting circuit that gives the necessary pressure or a higher one, as the forty-four-cell battery could be charged from a two-hundred-volt circuit, but a great deal of resistance would have to be used in series with the battery, which consumes energy, and hence makes the process an expensive one. ”

“ A prominent factor in the electrical art is the Storage Battery, Secondary Battery, or Accumulator, as it is variously called. A storage battery acts upon the same general principle as the ordinary galvanic or voltaic battery in giving forth electrical current as the correlated equivalent of the chemical force, but differs from it in this respect, that when the elements of a primary battery are used up, the battery is exhausted beyond repair. With the storage battery, it may be regenerated at will by simply subjecting it to an electric current from a dynamo. ”

“ Now, if we were to attempt to use open-circuit batteries for electric lights or motors, where the electricity must work constantly every second, the batteries would "polarize"—that is to say, they would only work a few minutes and then stop, because the chemicals used in them are of that kind that they will only allow the battery to do a little work at a time. ”

“ When starting and lighting systems were adopted in 1912, storage batteries had been used for many years in electric power stations. These were, however, large and heavy, and many difficult problems of design had to be solved in order to produce a battery capable of performing the work of cranking the engine, and yet be portable, light, and small enough to occupy only a very limited space on the automobile. As a result of these conditions governing the design, the starting and lighting battery of today is in reality "the giant that lives in a box." ”

“ We are now in a position to examine the apparatus of which a coherer forms part (Fig. 61) . First, we notice the aërial and earth wires, to which are attached other wires from battery A. This battery circuit passes round the relay magnet R and through two choking coils, whose function is to prevent the Hertzian waves entering the battery. The relay, when energized, brings contact D against E and closes the circuit of battery B, which is much more powerful than battery A, and operates the magnet M as well as the tapper, which is practically an electric bell minus the gong. ”

“ In handling the lamp while making connections with the battery wires, care must be taken that the lamp wires are not broken off close to the glass by too much twisting. Should this happen, the lamp would be rendered useless, because then we could not get a connection with the carbon filament.
All the connections having been made, everything is ready to charge the battery. Charging means to fill the cells with the proper chemical solutions which, in their action upon the zinc and carbons, produce the electric current. ”

“ Some idea of the power that may be put into a small storage battery is to be had from the fact that a storage battery of only 6 volts pressure, such as is used in self-starters on automobiles, will turn a motor and crank a heavy six-cylinder engine; or it will run the automobile, without gasoline, for a mile or more with its own accumulated store of electric current. ”

“ For energizing a gas lighting primary coil, the current must be large, but is only required occasionally, the battery standing idle for long periods. In this case the class called open circuit cells are preferable, as they contain no strong acids and do not deteriorate to any extent when not in use. Of such class is the Leclanche-Samson, Monarch, carbon cylinder, and most so-called dry cells. As the resistance in a conductor [Pg 81] affects the current flow, so it does in a battery cell; the internal resistance of a battery is determined by its size, proximity of the elements, etc. ”

“ Inspect the Battery twice every month in Winter, and once a week in Summer, to make sure that the Electrolyte covers the plates. To do this, remove the vent caps and look down through the vent tube. If a light is necessary to determine the level of the electrolyte, use an electric lamp. Never bring an open flame, such as a match or candle near the vent tubes of a battery. Explosive gases are formed when a battery "gasses," and the flame may ignite them, with painful injury to the face and eyes of the observer as a result. Such an explosion may also ruin the battery. ”

“ It is a singular variety of electric welding. A stronger stimulus enables more molecules to hold on, the process is surprisingly metrical; and as far as I roughly know at present, the change of resistance is proportional to the energy of the electric radiation, from a source of given frequency.
It is to be specially noted that a battery current is not needed to effect the cohesion, only to demonstrate it. The battery can be applied after the spark has occurred, and the resistance will be found changed as much as if the battery had been on all the time. ”

“ The motive power on the electric launch is the electric current; we must decide upon the mode of procuring the current. The mode which first suggested itself to Professor Jacobi, in the year 1838, was the primary battery, or the purely chemical process of generating electricity.
Jacobi employed, in the first instance, a Daniell's battery, and in later experiments with his boat on the river Neva, a Grove's battery. The Daniell's battery consisted of 320 cells containing plates of copper and zinc; the speed attained by the boat with this battery did not reach one mile and a quarter per hour ”

“ There is another form of battery having for its object the storing of energy by electrolysis, and liberating it when desired, in the form of an electric current, and known as an accumulator, or secondary, polarization, or storage battery. Prof. Ritter had noticed that the two plates of metal which furnished the electric current, when placed in the acid liquid and united, could in themselves furnish a current, and the inventing of storage batteries was thus produced. ”

“ In the electric battery it is the connecting together of the opposite poles of zinc and copper that causes a current to flow from one to the other and so provides the energy that rings the bell. If the connection is broken there is no action. ”

“ The battery produces a low-tension harmless current that is rapidly closed and broken at the induction coil, which transforms it into a high-tension current capable of producing electric sparks, and giving exceedingly painful if not fatal electric shocks. Wires convey this high-tension current from the coil to the terminals of the Crookes tube, where the Röntgen rays are produced whenever the current is turned on. In the figure the plate-holder is shown only a few inches from the tube, where the effect of the rays is strong. ”

“ A thoroughly good and simple storage battery would mean nearly as much for electric art as the dynamo. From a dynamo it would receive currents derived from wind or water powers, or from engines temporarily laden below their capacity, and use these currents to restore a metal from its solution by a process exactly that of electroplating. Then, on demand, it would yield electricity once more by surrendering this metal to solution, as a common voltaic battery does. ”

“ Copper.—If copper be present, a bluish white precipitate will be formed when ammonia solution is added to the electrolyte.
Fig. 1,090.—One cell of the Gould storage battery for electric vehicle use. According to the data given by the manufacturers, this cell, containing four negative and three positive plates, has a normal charging rate of 27 amperes; a distance rate of 22 amperes for four hours; a capacity of 81 ampere hours at 3 hours discharge, and of 90 ampere hours at 4 hours discharge. Forty such cells are generally used for an average light vehicle battery. ”

“ Battery, Voltaic or Galvanic.
An apparatus for converting chemical energy directly into electric
energy. This is as broad a definition as can well be given. The general
conception of a battery includes the action of electrolysis, a solution
in the battery acting upon one of two conducting electrodes immersed in
such fluid, which dissolves one of them only, or one more than the
other. The best way to obtain a fundamental idea of a battery is to
start with the simplest. Dilute sulphuric acid dissolves neither pure
zinc nor copper. ”

“ Each additional lighted lamp208 adds to the current by decreasing the resistance of the circuit. S is a switch which must always be left open when the dynamos are to be stopped.
Charging from Primary Battery.
In many instances an electric-light circuit is not available for charging purposes, in which event recourse must be made to a primary battery. The one most suited for the work is the modified Daniell, or copper and zinc combination in solutions of sulphate of copper (bluestone) and sulphate of zinc respectively. ”

“ The one you have just made is a simple one frequently used for doorbells. Other batteries are more complicated. Some are made with copper and zinc in a solution of copper sulfate; some, even, are made by letting electricity from a dynamo run [pg 206] through a solution from one lead plate to another until a chemical substance is stored on one of them; then, when the two lead plates are connected by a wire, the electrons run from one to the other. This kind of battery is called a storage battery, and it is much used in submarines and automobiles. ”

“ No definite rule is given concerning the fusing of low-voltage storage batteries, but it is good practice to insert a double-pole fuse in each branch circuit; the fuse to be small enough to protect the smallest wire fed through it. The capacity of storage batteries is usually given in “ampere hours”. A 60-ampere-hour battery, for instance, can deliver three amperes for twenty hours or ten amperes for six hours. ”

“ The cells used (platinum, sulphate of mercury, sulphate of zinc, zinc) had a high internal resistance. Thus, 43 cells (60 volts) , when short-circuited, only gave a current of 5 milliamperes. The same battery, with the column of distilled water in circuit only, caused a deflection of 100 mm. on a scale one metre off, with an astatic [Pg 108] galvanometer wound with 50,000 turns. We can, therefore, see how infinitesimally small the initial current must have been when the filings were added to the circuit. The battery acted, therefore, essentially by virtue of its electromotive force. ”

“ The charging of farm lighting batteries is very much like the charging of automobile batteries on the charging bench, except that the batteries are at all times connected to switches, by means of which they may be put on the charging line.
Some plants are so arranged that the battery and generator do not provide current for the lights at the same time, lights being out while the battery is charging. In others the generator and battery, in emergency, may both provide current. In others the lights may burn while the battery is being charged ”

“ Many central lighting and power stations employ storage batteries to supply the extra current demanded during rush hours. In the middle of the day, when the "load" is light, the surplus current of the dynamos is used to recharge the storage batteries.
What is really effected in the storage battery is the electrical storage of energy, not the storage of electricity. Properly speaking, the energy is put into the form of chemical energy, and there is really no more electricity in the cell when it is charged than after it is discharged. ”

“ Persons living in the city will find an economical means of lighting lamps by securing exhausted batteries from any garage, where they are glad to have them taken away. A certain number of these, after a rest, can be connected up in series, and will give the proper voltage.
In conclusion, for battery power: Connecting batteries in series increases the voltage, and slightly cuts down the current or amperage, which is the same as that of one battery; while connecting batteries in parallel increases the amperage, but holds the voltage the same as that of one cell. ”