Battery (electricity)

“ We see from the above that the "storage" battery does not "store" electricity at all, but changes chemical into electrical energy when "discharging," and changes electrical into chemical energy when "charging," the two actions being entirely reversible. The idea of "storing" electricity comes from the fact that if we send a current of electricity through the cell for a certain length of time, we can at a later time draw a current from the cell for almost the same length of time. ”

“ The battery is charged during periods when the demand for current is small, and when a heavy load comes on, the current from the battery relieves the generators of the sudden strain. To be of any service for such a purpose the storage battery of course must be very large. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In the case of electricity generated by means of a galvanic battery, we do not note the same phenomena unless the battery is a strong one. We have in such a battery a steady source of electricity, but unless the battery is powerful, the electricity is of low intensity, and not competent to produce the most striking phenomena of frictional electricity. For instance, voltaic electricity, as used in telegraphic communication, is far weaker than that obtained from even a small electrical machine. What is called the positive extremity of the battery neither gives a spark, nor attracts light bodies. ”

“ Since the principal item of first cost, as well as depreciation, in a storage battery electric light plant is the storage battery itself, the smallest battery commensurate with needs is selected. Since the amount of current stored by these batteries is relatively small, electric irons and heating devices such as may be used freely on a direct-connected plant without a battery, are rather expensive luxuries. For instance, an electric iron drawing 400 watts an hour while in use, requires as much energy as 20 tungsten lamps of 16 candlepower each burning for the same length of time. ”

“ 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. ”

“ If the battery is insulated it may be charged with electricity as a whole, but the potential of the copper end will always exceed that of the zinc end by the electromotive force of the battery, whatever the absolute value of either of these potentials may be. The cells of the battery may be of very various construction, containing different chemical substances and different metals, provided they are such that chemical action does not go on when no current passes. ”

“ A battery is not able to generate quantity or coulombs of electricity; all it is able to do is to take the quantity which pours in at one pole, and sends out at the other pole with an increased pressure. Electricity, therefore, is not merely force (or a form of energy) , but matter. ”

“ All galvanic batteries act on one general principle—the generation of electricity by the chemical action of acid on metal plates; but the chemistry of their action is very different. In all batteries the potential energy of one element is greater than the other. The acid of the battery dissolves the element of greater potentiality, and its energy is freed and under right conditions takes on the form of electricity. The potential of zinc, for instance, is greater than that of copper, and the measure of the difference is called the "electromotive force," the unit of which is the "volt." ”

“ As soon as this circuit is provided, the opportunity is given to the iron to receive the oxygen. This it does, and in so doing develops electrical energy.
This energy is in the form of electric current which is then delivered by the battery on what is called the "discharge," and this current may be used for lighting lamps or for operating motors or other electrical devices.
The battery is said to be discharging as long as the iron is receiving oxygen from the nickel oxide. ”

“ By this beautiful discovery electricity was for the first time enslaved to man, who was now able to generate and control it at times and in such quantities as he desired. Although the voltaic battery is now nearly obsolete as a source of electricity, its invention must always be regarded as one of the three epoch-making events in the history of the science during the past one hundred and twenty years. ”

“ To reverse, it is only necessary to change the direction of the current's flow; and in order to stop, the connection between motor and battery is broken by a switch.
Electricity is the ideal power for automobiles. Being clean and easily controlled, it seems just the thing; but it is expensive, and sometimes hard to get. No satisfactory substitute has been found for it, however, in the larger cities, and it may be that creative or "primary" batteries both cheap and effective will be invented and will do away with the one objection to electricity for automobiles. ”

“ The electricity generated by the voltaic battery is far greater in quantity than the most powerful electrical machine can excite, whilst its intensity is so feeble that it cannot pass in a spark through the smallest interval of air. It presents, therefore, much less difficulty in the insulation of the wires than frictional electricity, whilst the rapidity of its transmission is for practical purposes equally efficient. ”

“ A thermo battery, for producing electricity direct from heat, can be made of a wooden frame, A, with a number of nails, B, driven in the vertical piece and connected in series with heavy copper wires, C. The connections should all be soldered to give good results, as the voltage is very low and the resistance of an unsoldered joint would stop the current. ”

“ In a third class the arrangement is more complicated, as it involves the use of storage batteries as an auxiliary to the power provided directly by the petrol engine. The Fischer type of petrol-electric vehicle uses electric transmission solely and has a fairly large battery to supplement the engine-produced current when steep hills are being negotiated. At ordinary speeds on level roads the surplus power produced by the engine goes to charge the battery. ”

“ On any car that uses an electric lighting and starting system, there are two sources of electricity, the generator and the battery, These must furnish the power for the starting, or "cranking" motor, the ignition, the lights, the horn, and the other devices. The demands made upon the generator are comparatively light and simple, and no severe work is done by it. The battery, on the other hand is called upon to give a much more severe service, that of furnishing the power to crank the engine. ”

“ 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 ”

“ These two dissimilar actions appear enigmatical; but they may, there is no doubt, receive some solution from the influence of different rays on the contrary poles of the battery. One [Pg 184] thing is quite evident,—electricity suffers a disturbance of one order, by light; and an excitement of another by its associated principles in the sunbeam. If a yellow glass is interposed between the galvanic arrangement and the sun, the electro-chemical precipitation goes on in the same manner as it would in perfect darkness, and no extra excitement is produced upon the plates of the battery. ”

“ The voltage of a lead cell must not rise above 2.2 nor fall below 1.8. It must not be allowed to furnish at any one time a greater number of amperes than it is rated for. It must not stand idle too much. It must not be cleaned up and put away for a period. In fact, the lead-sulphuric acid battery is so poorly adapted to our need that I feel disposed to try Mr. Edison's new storage battery. This has nickel hydrate packed in tubes of metallic nickel for the positive plates and iron oxide pressed into pockets in a sheet of metallic iron for the negative plate. ”

“ An accumulator, therefore, is nothing more than a primary battery in which the chemicals can be renewed, as often as required, by simply passing a current of electricity through it, such current in practice being produced by means of an engine and a dynamo. It may also be observed that the primary battery at the present moment is not a suitable means for producing electricity on a large scale, for, apart from expense, the necessity to replace new chemicals in the cells from time to time involves considerable trouble and inconvenience ”

“ The platinum bridge, having less conducting power than the copper wires, presents a considerable resistance to any current of electricity that passes, and so becomes heated sufficiently to ignite gunpowder. "But for many purposes," remarks Mr. Baden Pritchard, "the wire fuse is ill adapted to the military and naval services. A voltaic battery is necessary to evolve the low-tension electricity required to yield sufficient resistance and heat, and such a battery made up of metal plates, and involving the use of acids, is a cumbersome apparatus. ”

“ If you vigorously knead a lemon to free the juices and then stick a strip of zinc in one end and a copper strip in the other, you can measure a voltage across the strips. Electrons will flow through the load without the inconvenience of having to supply heat. You have made yourself a chemical battery.
The chemical battery was the first direct conversion device. Two hundred years ago it was the scientists’ only continuous source of electricity.
Since the chemical battery does not need heat for its operation, it is logical to ask what makes the current flow. Where does the energy come from? ”

“ 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. ”

“ Is it always best to use the largest wire in connecting batteries with any instrument, say, above No. 11 or No. 12 wire, as the larger the wire the less the resistance, thereby getting nearly the full power of the battery? A. Yes. 4. What purposes are quantity and intensity electricity best suited for respectively? A. Batteries are arranged for quantity or intensity according to the work to be done. The maximum effect is obtained when the battery elements are combined, so that the total resistance in the elements is equal to the resistance of the rest of the circuit. ”

“ They offer enough resistance to cut the current required of the battery down to one third what the "make and break" coil would take and at the same time they raise the voltage so much higher that the spark will jump across an air gap without being led across as an arc. ”

“ I am somewhat exhausted; I wonder how a battery feels when it pours electricity into a non-conductor? ”

“ 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. ”