I just replaced the lead acid batteries in my UPS, and I got to thinking if I should have a Li Ion one. A Li Ion battery of the same capacity as a sealed lead acid is about 3 times more expensive. But.... at the high discharge rate you get with a UPS, the lead acid only gives you a third of its capacity, a Li Ion gives you almost all of it. So you need a third of the amount of battery so the price is identical. So how come the UPSs designed for Li Ion batteries are 5 times more expensive?
I read manufacturing cost is about 40% more and probably scale of manufacture enters. Also you must baby a lithium battery more to keep it effective and I assume this costs more in peripheral equipment.
"In general, however, it can be said that the installed cost of a Li-ion system costs roughly 1.2 to 2 times more (as of 2018) than what it would cost for a valve-regulated lead acid battery system at the same power level and runtime"
Is the opposite of what I've read from (admittedly) sales blurb.
And from my own calculations, Li Ion batteries cost precisely the same amount to get the same capacity (allowing for the vastly decreased capacity of Lead Acid due to high loads, they really don't like being used at a rate faster than C/20). But.... they have a longer life. So assuming the electronics of the UPS are similar in cost, the unit should cost the same to buy but need new batteries half as often, and of course it's lighter.
The cheapest thing to do though is to use flooded lead acids (i.e. car batteries) at a third of the price of sealed ones. You do have a small risk of sulphur dioxide coming out of them when they die, but unless you've got them somewhere that people or animals cannot escape from or open a window, no big deal.
Then you must have been charging it too fast and in an enclosed area. Hydrogen doesn't come from nowhere, what you've done is evaporated some of the acid and damaged the battery.
I had a similar battery explosion. Fortunately I wasnt near it...
Back in 1985 or so, Sears (remember them?) had "switchable", for want of a better term, car battery.
It was the standard size, and had the main one, so to speak, at roughly 2/3rds the capacity of the normal one, and had a second one in the same case, perhaps with one fifth.
(Yeah, this adds up to less than 100 percent 'cuz some space was needed for the circuitry and extra packaging).
In normal operation you left the battery switch turned to "main". However, if you had left the lights on and it was dead, you turned it to "secondary" which gave you enough power to start the car. You then switched it back and the car would charge the main one back up, too.
Anyway, one day I turned the starter and "ka-poof-bang". Eyup, an explosion from the battery.
No obvious fire and just a little smoke continued.
I put on goggles and other gear and carefully opened the hood. Lots of scorch marks and other minor damage.
Oh, the car wouldn't start...
In retrospect I did something dumb, namely switched to "secondary" and started the car. But at least I wasn't stupid assed dumb - all I did was drive to the nearest Sears place which was only a few miles away.
They replaced it with a standard DieHard, no charge. And apologized.
Later on I discovered they had a full scale recall...
Too bad. These were actually a very useful concept.
I have experienced several battery explosions over the decades. Back when I was teaching,on the very day we discussed the proper way to disconnect a battery, a student tried to start his '65 Poncho and wore the battery down - then went to remove it to put in a spare. BIG bang as the bottom blew out of the battery. Chalk that one up to STUPIDITY Several years earlier, the olf '49 Massey Harris was sometimes slow to crank. One day I hit the starter button and it just barely turned. I released the button and tried again - it fired right up with a BANG!!!! - with battery bits everywhere. Ends up the starting problem was a bad intercell connection and it arced - igniting the hydrogen released by trying to start the engine. Then a few years back I was replacing an exhaust part on my car in my brother's shop. I used the angle grinder to cut off a bad clamp not realizing my brother had a somewhotquestionable motorcycle battery on charge on the workbench aboput 15-18 feet away from where I was working - and a spark from the grinder got within range of that heavily gassing battery - at least now there was no question as to wheather tha battery was salvageable or not - - - -
I don't think a battery weighs much compared to an engine. I think it's insane having rear wheel drive cars with the engine at the front. The engine should be at the same end as the driving wheels. And of course front wheel drive is way easier to control unless you're a racing driver.
The first FWD car I had was an Audi; I almost killed myself before I got used to it. I was used to drifting. Not the Japanese art form but applying power in a corner to loosen up the rear end.
I don't understand why people want to go to all that trouble. If a FWD car gets into difficulty, you just ease off whatever you were doing. With RWD you have to counterintuitively do more of it, in the other direction, and try not to overcompensate. With most drivers this ends up with a tailhappy car. I had a RWD Ford Sierra, it was uncontrollable and once I got into a skid, it would weave left and right and left and right, more and more, always ending up slammed against a wall.
When you grow up driving RWD cars fast on dirt roads you learn the reflexes. My brother in law drove like you do, except he would up rolling the damn thing. He never could drive for shit. He was a merchant seaman and tried to drive cars like a cargo freighter.
Why buy a car which involves learning a technique? FWD is intuitive, it's the same as walking. If you slip you do less of what you were doing (braking/accelerating/steering) so you don't make the skid worse.
Mine didn't last forever. They were stolen, I think by a mechanic at the garage doing my service. They were a damn good set, longer than the length of the car and half an inch thick. They were sold as lorry leads I think. Rated at 300 amps ish.
I used that in a car park a couple of months back. The woman (and me) had no clue how to access the battery in her brand new Merc. Why do they cover everything up nowadays? The bonnet (hood) hides everything anyway. In the end she thanked me for helping her find the bonnet release catch and how to remove the battery cover.
In the US in the '50s and '60s there wasn't a lot of FWD selection. The Saab 92 and eventually the Mini were about it.
I'd went in to buy a Porsche 914, which was. I'd didn't find it very comfortable so I bought the Audi 100LS instead. It was Volkswagen's first attempt at a FWD and they didn't do it very well. Audi must have improved quite a bit since they're still in business. It's the onlly car I've ever owned that I didn't really like. When we divorced my wife got the Audi and I kept the Lincoln. She traded it for a Rabbit (Golf) but VW had their shit together by then and it ws a decent little box.
The only thing that annoys me about FWD is the increased turning circle. You can't turn the wheels so sharply when they have the drive mechanism attached.
What I'd love is a car where all 4 wheels would rotate to 90 degrees. Think how easy parallel parking would be (which I and many people have never got the hang of - it appears to be entirely guesswork).
2 cars ago I had a Rabbit/Golf. FWD 1.9L diesel auto, brilliant car.
Be careful of what you wish for. My father talked about a military truck with 4 wheel steering. The rear wheels turned counter to the front wheels, giving a remarkable turning radius. The problem was if you parked it parallel to a wall and came back to find something parked in front of and behind you.
I suppose a 90 degree rotation would be possible in an EV with a motor mounted in the hub of each wheel like some of the eBikes.
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