Is This The Magic Battery?

Dave Head > wrote:
>On Wed, 03 Nov 2010 09:47:58 -0500, Jim Yanik >
>wrote:
>>Dave Head > wrote in
m:

>>Who says the system controller will tolerate loss of a section of it's
>>pack? You also can damage the pack further by using it that way.
>>You might even start a battery fire by drawing current through the
>>bad section.

>Even I can see a workaround to that - you take the battery out of the
>circuit, and short across where it was in the overall battery array.
>If you're supplying 360 volts with 30 12-volt batteries, then
>afterward you're supplying 348 volts with 29 12-volt batteries. The
>bad 12-volt battery is totally out of the system. There's a shorting
>bar across where the battery was formerly connected.

You're an idiot. You really don't have a clue. You shouldn't be
allowed near anything more complex than a slice of buttered bread.

It's unsafe to assume that "dead" cells no longer have any stored
energy. Shorting a "flat" 12V battery has spectacular results.

>>After all,we are drawing LOTS of amps. An ability to switch around
>>a bad section will add greatly to the controller's complexity and
>>cost.

>Might.

No: IS. Each cell of the battery has to be able to be isolated from
the current draw. That is mechanically intractible as at least
hundreds of amps have to be switched past the cell while the cell
is electrically isolated. Hundreds to thousands of cells are
required to supply adequate

Switching with solid-state requires lots of high-current
semi-conductors. With isolation voltages in the thousands of volts.
Every cell requires individual management by micro-controller to try
to manage the state of charge and the charge behaviour. And although
the micro-controllers may "float" in potential with their relative
location in the battery of cells, the maximum voltage difference is
limited to under 100 Volts or thereabouts in practice.

Semi-conductor gates to isolate faulty cells also need to be
fail-safe. If they are in-series with other cells for just a
fraction of a second, the whole thing is in danger of going up
in smoke - or worse.

>And I'm not necessarily willing to give up on the idea of some
>really high-voltage motors that work at relatively low amperages.

Do you know that electric motors work on magnetism?
Do you understand that magnetic fields produced by electrical
current depend upon the amount of current?

Voltage comes into the game by being necessary to establish the
current through the conductor.

Higher voltages are used to minimise the resistive (I^2R) losses
through motor windings.

>It'd require some safety measure that, for instance, would
>disconnect all the individual 12-volt batteries in case of an
>accident. So maybe you end up with 1000 small, 12-volt batteries
>rattling around in the car, each capable of supplying 5 amps for 6
>hours. No, I don't know how to make that come together, but again
>won't declare it impossible.

Sorry; small cells in parallel to supply a large amount of current
result in the eventual destruction of all the cells. One can try to
regulate the current from each individual cell, but that process is
very complex, inefficient and also very expensive.

You need toadd aword to your vocabulary: "Unfeasible".
--
/"\ Bernd Felsche - Innovative Reckoning, Perth, Western Australia
\ / ASCII ribbon campaign | For every complex problem there is an
X against HTML mail | answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.
/ \ and postings | --HL Mencken

On Thu, 04 Nov 2010 15:33:19 +0800, Bernd Felsche
> wrote:

>>Hell, I don't know, but I won't sit here and say that just because I
>>can't think of a way to do it in 5 minutes, or even 5 days, doesn't
>>mean that 10 other guys can't figure it out too. Maybe it's doable,
>>maybe its not. If its not, there still may be some exotic way to make
>>it work anyway. Try and have a little faith in technological
>>advancement.
>
>Let's be clear about that:
>Thousands of people have been trying to figure it out for decades.

No, they have not.

Now we have a battery in this Audi that apparently holds enough energy
for it to go about 400 miles on a single charge. NOW people can start
at figuring out how to apply that.

>You haven't noticed that because you've filtered it out from your
>perception.

They haven't had anything to work with up to now, except big heavy
batteries that run out in 40 miles or so.

>>Again, I've always marveled at the innovation to date, and people that
>>figure out new ways to do something that I had always thought for
>>years to be impossible. But... they figured it out. I kinda expect
>>that sort of thing to continue.
>
>Yeah... you think of something and expect somebody else to hand you
>the finished product, having solved all the problems that've stumped
>technologists for decades or even centuries. Problems rooted in
>fundamental limits of the real world.

It appears that the limits to electrical energy storage may have just
been raised. That means we can start thinking of how to apply that.

In article >,
Dave Head > wrote:

> On Thu, 04 Nov 2010 15:33:19 +0800, Bernd Felsche
> > wrote:
>
> >>Hell, I don't know, but I won't sit here and say that just because I
> >>can't think of a way to do it in 5 minutes, or even 5 days, doesn't
> >>mean that 10 other guys can't figure it out too. Maybe it's doable,
> >>maybe its not. If its not, there still may be some exotic way to make
> >>it work anyway. Try and have a little faith in technological
> >>advancement.
> >
> >Let's be clear about that:
> >Thousands of people have been trying to figure it out for decades.
>
> No, they have not.

Yes, they most certainly have.

>
> Now we have a battery in this Audi that apparently holds enough energy
> for it to go about 400 miles on a single charge. NOW people can start
> at figuring out how to apply that.
>
> >You haven't noticed that because you've filtered it out from your
> >perception.
>
> They haven't had anything to work with up to now, except big heavy
> batteries that run out in 40 miles or so.

Nonsense.

>
> >>Again, I've always marveled at the innovation to date, and people that
> >>figure out new ways to do something that I had always thought for
> >>years to be impossible. But... they figured it out. I kinda expect
> >>that sort of thing to continue.
> >
> >Yeah... you think of something and expect somebody else to hand you
> >the finished product, having solved all the problems that've stumped
> >technologists for decades or even centuries. Problems rooted in
> >fundamental limits of the real world.
>
> It appears that the limits to electrical energy storage may have just
> been raised. That means we can start thinking of how to apply that.

--
Alan Baker
Vancouver, British Columbia
<http://gallery.me.com/alangbaker/100008/DSCF0162/web.jpg>

On Thu, 04 Nov 2010 03:13:14 GMT,
(Matthew Russotto) wrote:

>In article >,
>Dave Head > wrote:
>>
>>Even I can see a workaround to that - you take the battery out of the
>>circuit, and short across where it was in the overall battery array.
>>If you're supplying 360 volts with 30 12-volt batteries, then
>>afterward you're supplying 348 volts with 29 12-volt batteries. The
>>bad 12-volt battery is totally out of the system. There's a shorting
>>bar across where the battery was formerly connected.
>
>Yeah, I could come up with that one too. OK, now you've added a relay
>to every cell. Cost, weight, and complexity have just gone up by a
>lot (your shorting bar has to be able to carry full battery current).

>The problem isn't that any given issue doesn't have a solution. It's
>that it's necessary to solve _all_ the issues at once. And there just
>isn't enough margin in some key areas (like battery energy density) to do it.
>
>>Might. And I'm not necessarily willing to give up on the idea of some
>>really high-voltage motors that work at relatively low amperages.
>
>What are you going to use to insulate the windings?

I don't design motors, so I don't know. I might have to go ask those
folks that make the really high voltage motors how they do it.

http://www.abb.com/product/seitp322/...ry=US&tabKey=2

They have some big, stationary jobs on some oil platforms that run
between 20Kv and 70Kv. I'm only thinking maybe 4 Kv. With 4 Kv,
every amp is worth a bit over 5 horsepower. So, such a motor in a car
like an old Chevelle SS 396, with a 400 Hp motor, would only be
drawing 80 amps. An 80 amp relay ain't that big a deal. Maybe its
not a relay, but a switch, that gets thrown by a mechanical means.
Maybe a little LED lights on a panel somewhere, and tells you to push
a certain button on the floor under the seat to do it, I dunno. How
often you going to have to compensate for a dead battery like that?
Once a year? Or every trip? Once a year and a person-activated
switch might be OK.

>There's two basic
>limits on the voltage an electric motor can take (that I know of); one
>is the intensity of magnetic flux the core can handle, the other is
>the amount of voltage the insulation on the windings can handle. It's
>easy enough to increase both.... at a high cost in weight.

And maybe our car doesn't have one big motor any more than it has one
big battery. Maybe it has a motor for each wheel, they are each 100
Hp, and they draw 80 amps each at 1000 volts for a 400 hp "muscle car"
replica. There's lots of ways to play with this to mitigate the
limitations. I don't have the answer just sitting here and imagining
things, but I think there's an answer somewhere.

On Thu, 04 Nov 2010 16:06:48 +0800, Bernd Felsche
> wrote:

>Dave Head > wrote:
>>On Wed, 03 Nov 2010 09:47:58 -0500, Jim Yanik >
>>wrote:
>>>Dave Head > wrote in
:
>
>>>Who says the system controller will tolerate loss of a section of it's
>>>pack? You also can damage the pack further by using it that way.
>>>You might even start a battery fire by drawing current through the
>>>bad section.
>
>>Even I can see a workaround to that - you take the battery out of the
>>circuit, and short across where it was in the overall battery array.
>>If you're supplying 360 volts with 30 12-volt batteries, then
>>afterward you're supplying 348 volts with 29 12-volt batteries. The
>>bad 12-volt battery is totally out of the system. There's a shorting
>>bar across where the battery was formerly connected.
>
>You're an idiot. You really don't have a clue. You shouldn't be
>allowed near anything more complex than a slice of buttered bread.
>
>It's unsafe to assume that "dead" cells no longer have any stored
>energy. Shorting a "flat" 12V battery has spectacular results.

Duh... OF COURSE I meant to unconnect the battery from that part of
the series. That's what it means when I say "where the battery was
formerly connected."
>
>>>After all,we are drawing LOTS of amps. An ability to switch around
>>>a bad section will add greatly to the controller's complexity and
>>>cost.
>
>>Might.
>
>No: IS. Each cell of the battery has to be able to be isolated from
>the current draw. That is mechanically intractible as at least
>hundreds of amps have to be switched past the cell while the cell
>is electrically isolated. Hundreds to thousands of cells are
>required to supply adequate
>
>Switching with solid-state requires lots of high-current
>semi-conductors. With isolation voltages in the thousands of volts.
>Every cell requires individual management by micro-controller to try
>to manage the state of charge and the charge behaviour. And although
>the micro-controllers may "float" in potential with their relative
>location in the battery of cells, the maximum voltage difference is
>limited to under 100 Volts or thereabouts in practice.
>
>Semi-conductor gates to isolate faulty cells also need to be
>fail-safe. If they are in-series with other cells for just a
>fraction of a second, the whole thing is in danger of going up
>in smoke - or worse.

I think semi-conductors for such switching of low-voltage cells in
high current environments are probably a loser. A silicon junction
usually exhibits about 0.7 volts of loss across it, so that doing that
for 30 batteries is 21 volts wasted. Its probably going to have to be
mechanical, or the individual battery might have to be 120 volts
instead of 12.
>
>>And I'm not necessarily willing to give up on the idea of some
>>really high-voltage motors that work at relatively low amperages.
>
>Do you know that electric motors work on magnetism?
>Do you understand that magnetic fields produced by electrical
>current depend upon the amount of current?

They're dependent upon the amount of combined flux generated by a
winding scheme around a flux concentrator - the stator or armature. If
you have 10 turns of wire carrying 100 amps, or 1000 turns of wire
carrying 1 amp, you're going to get a lot of magetic flux.

>Voltage comes into the game by being necessary to establish the
>current through the conductor.

Yep.

>Higher voltages are used to minimise the resistive (I^2R) losses
>through motor windings.

Yes...

>>It'd require some safety measure that, for instance, would
>>disconnect all the individual 12-volt batteries in case of an
>>accident. So maybe you end up with 1000 small, 12-volt batteries
>>rattling around in the car, each capable of supplying 5 amps for 6
>>hours. No, I don't know how to make that come together, but again
>>won't declare it impossible.
>
>Sorry; small cells in parallel

Series. That's how you may 1000 12-volt batteries yield 12,000
volts... not that I'm saying 12Kv is a magic number. But it is a
series connection.

>to supply a large amount of current

voltage

>result in the eventual destruction of all the cells.

They discharge each other when connected in parallel.

>One can try to
>regulate the current from each individual cell, but that process is
>very complex, inefficient and also very expensive.
>
>You need toadd aword to your vocabulary: "Unfeasible".

Many approaches are unfeasible. But there's likely one out there that
will work.

In article >,
Dave Head > wrote:

> On Thu, 04 Nov 2010 03:13:14 GMT,
> (Matthew Russotto) wrote:
>
> >In article >,
> >Dave Head > wrote:
> >>
> >>Even I can see a workaround to that - you take the battery out of the
> >>circuit, and short across where it was in the overall battery array.
> >>If you're supplying 360 volts with 30 12-volt batteries, then
> >>afterward you're supplying 348 volts with 29 12-volt batteries. The
> >>bad 12-volt battery is totally out of the system. There's a shorting
> >>bar across where the battery was formerly connected.
> >
> >Yeah, I could come up with that one too. OK, now you've added a relay
> >to every cell. Cost, weight, and complexity have just gone up by a
> >lot (your shorting bar has to be able to carry full battery current).
>
> >The problem isn't that any given issue doesn't have a solution. It's
> >that it's necessary to solve _all_ the issues at once. And there just
> >isn't enough margin in some key areas (like battery energy density) to do
> >it.
> >
> >>Might. And I'm not necessarily willing to give up on the idea of some
> >>really high-voltage motors that work at relatively low amperages.
> >
> >What are you going to use to insulate the windings?
>
> I don't design motors, so I don't know. I might have to go ask those
> folks that make the really high voltage motors how they do it.
>
> http://www.abb.com/product/seitp322/...ebe2.aspx?prod
> uctLanguage=us&country=US&tabKey=2
>
> They have some big, stationary jobs on some oil platforms that run
> between 20Kv and 70Kv. I'm only thinking maybe 4 Kv. With 4 Kv,
> every amp is worth a bit over 5 horsepower. So, such a motor in a car
> like an old Chevelle SS 396, with a 400 Hp motor, would only be
> drawing 80 amps. An 80 amp relay ain't that big a deal. Maybe its
> not a relay, but a switch, that gets thrown by a mechanical means.
> Maybe a little LED lights on a panel somewhere, and tells you to push
> a certain button on the floor under the seat to do it, I dunno. How
> often you going to have to compensate for a dead battery like that?
> Once a year? Or every trip? Once a year and a person-activated
> switch might be OK.


And how much do those motors weigh, Dave. Did you even think that might
be important?

>
> >There's two basic
> >limits on the voltage an electric motor can take (that I know of); one
> >is the intensity of magnetic flux the core can handle, the other is
> >the amount of voltage the insulation on the windings can handle. It's
> >easy enough to increase both.... at a high cost in weight.
>
> And maybe our car doesn't have one big motor any more than it has one
> big battery. Maybe it has a motor for each wheel, they are each 100
> Hp, and they draw 80 amps each at 1000 volts for a 400 hp "muscle car"
> replica. There's lots of ways to play with this to mitigate the
> limitations. I don't have the answer just sitting here and imagining
> things, but I think there's an answer somewhere.

Well, golly: that settles it, then!

--
Alan Baker
Vancouver, British Columbia
<http://gallery.me.com/alangbaker/100008/DSCF0162/web.jpg>

Dave Head > wrote:
>Bernd Felsche wrote:

>>>Hell, I don't know, but I won't sit here and say that just because I
>>>can't think of a way to do it in 5 minutes, or even 5 days, doesn't
>>>mean that 10 other guys can't figure it out too. Maybe it's doable,
>>>maybe its not. If its not, there still may be some exotic way to make
>>>it work anyway. Try and have a little faith in technological
>>>advancement.

>>Let's be clear about that:
>>Thousands of people have been trying to figure it out for decades.

>No, they have not.

>Now we have a battery in this Audi that apparently holds enough energy
>for it to go about 400 miles on a single charge. NOW people can start
>at figuring out how to apply that.

Have you walked those extra miles?

It's not a great deal of energy. Even those with only basic science
education should be able to figure that out.

How much? Well the A2 1.2 TDI would have consumed less than 3l/100km
by cruising on the Autobahn, especially when it's not really hot,
requiring air-conditioning or really cold; requring auxiliary heating.
The estimated fuel consumption for 600 km would have been 18 litres
for the super-efficient TDI (~50% in that operating cycle).

[NB: The Lupo 3L that circumnavigated the world in 80 days
used less than 2 litres/100km on some long, cruising segments while
in Australia; on roads with a rougher surface than the Autobahn.]

Energy from burning 18 litres of diesel is approximately 18*0.8*40
MJ ... 576 MJ. The nett energy delivery at the flywheel would
therefore be less than 288MJ (or 80 kWh) which fits in reasonably
well with the claims of it being an 115 kWh battery.
<http://green.autoblog.com/2010/10/27/converted-audi-a2-claims-new-electric-vehicle-distance-record-3/>

I suspect that the cruising speed was also carefully chosen so that
the electric motor was operating at "sweet-spot" efficiency for load
and speed. Electric motors do not have uniform efficiency at all
loads and speeds. Far from it. And operating temperatures also play
nasty tricks.

Li-Ion nano-wire (which this battery may NOT be) storage density is
published at the equivalent of about 2.54 MJ/kg so the lower limit
of the battery mass is 163 kg, without encapsulation and internal
electronics, electrics and mechanical cooling.

>>You haven't noticed that because you've filtered it out from your
>>perception.

>They haven't had anything to work with up to now, except big heavy
>batteries that run out in 40 miles or so.

There you go, filtering again.

My comment was in response to yours:
>>You do know that mixing batteries of varying capacities in
>>a battery pack is a "bad thing"?

>Hell, I don't know, but I won't sit here and say that just
>because I can't think of a way to do it in 5 minutes, or
>even 5 days, doesn't mean that 10 other guys can't figure
>it out too. Maybe it's doable, maybe its not. If its not,
>there still may be some exotic way to make it work anyway.
>Try and have a little faith in technological advancement.

>>>Again, I've always marveled at the innovation to date, and people
>>>that figure out new ways to do something that I had always
>>>thought for years to be impossible. But... they figured it out.
>>>I kinda expect that sort of thing to continue.

>>Yeah... you think of something and expect somebody else to hand you
>>the finished product, having solved all the problems that've stumped
>>technologists for decades or even centuries. Problems rooted in
>>fundamental limits of the real world.

>It appears that the limits to electrical energy storage may have just
>been raised. That means we can start thinking of how to apply that.

Like thinking on how we can apply cold fusion technology!

Smart people who don't like to waste their time and money first look
at the product data sheets and other specifications:
<http://www.nexergy.com/battery-chemistries.htm>
<http://www.gaia-akku.com/fileadmin/user_upload/downloads/cells/55AhHE_NCA.pdf>

Then you bump into the practical limits like not being able to
charge them at temperature above 40°C and not being able to use the
last 20% or so of capacity in order to maximise life.

Every battery technology has limits
<http://www.gaia-akku.com/en/technology/lfpnca.html>
And safety concerns e.g.
<http://www.gaia-akku.com/fileadmin/user_upload/downloads/en/Type%20NCA_253383_s_gb_gb.pdf>

And then sane people look at the price:
<http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2009/11/the-cost-of-additional-porsche-li-ion-lightness-132lb/>
--
/"\ Bernd Felsche - Innovative Reckoning, Perth, Western Australia
\ / ASCII ribbon campaign | For every complex problem there is an
X against HTML mail | answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.
/ \ and postings | --HL Mencken

Dave Head > wrote in
:

> On Wed, 03 Nov 2010 09:47:58 -0500, Jim Yanik >
> wrote:
>
>>Dave Head > wrote in
m:
>>
>>Who says the system controller will tolerate loss of a section of it's
>>pack? You also can damage the pack further by using it that way.
>>You might even start a battery fire by drawing current through the bad
>>section.
>
> Even I can see a workaround to that - you take the battery out of the
> circuit, and short across where it was in the overall battery array.
> If you're supplying 360 volts with 30 12-volt batteries, then
> afterward you're supplying 348 volts with 29 12-volt batteries. The
> bad 12-volt battery is totally out of the system. There's a shorting
> bar across where the battery was formerly connected.
>
>>After
>>all,we are drawing LOTS of amps. An ability to switch around a bad
>>section will add greatly to the controller's complexity and cost.
>
> Might.

WILL.
high power semis cost money and need heat sinks that take up space,add
weight.

> And I'm not necessarily willing to give up on the idea of some
> really high-voltage motors that work at relatively low amperages. It'd
> require some safety measure that, for instance, would disconnect all
> the individual 12-volt batteries in case of an accident. So maybe you
> end up with 1000 small, 12-volt batteries rattling around in the car,
> each capable of supplying 5 amps for 6 hours. No, I don't know how to
> make that come together, but again won't declare it impossible.
>

they are not going to put high voltage packs and motors in cars.
the moisture present in the automotive environment precludes that.
It's too great a fire hazard;at higher voltages,the chances of arc-over and
leakage are too high.

--
Jim Yanik
jyanik
at
localnet
dot com

Dave Head > wrote in
:

> On Wed, 03 Nov 2010 09:50:28 -0500, Jim Yanik >
> wrote:
>
>>Dave Head > wrote in
m:
>>
>>> On Tue, 02 Nov 2010 10:34:54 -0500, Jim Yanik >
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>>Dave Head > wrote in
m:
>>>>
>>>>> On Mon, 01 Nov 2010 09:25:30 -0500, Jim Yanik >
>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>>> The battery for that is very dangerous, too. Electricity with
>>>>>>> either high voltage or high amperage capacity is very dangerous.
>>>>>>> So is gasoline, too.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>One good reason why they aren't "swappable" battery packs.
>>>>>
>>>>> What reason is that again?
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>because handling them is dangerous.
>>>>Heck,even with 12V SLA betteries,people are having accidents. I saw a
>>>>woman clerk at a Autozone who shorted out a battery with the wrench
>>>>she was using to tighten the terminals.
>>>
>>> 1) Handling gasoline is dangerous.
>>
>>No,it's not. millions of People do it every day.
>
> Well, lots of people do great handling 12 volt batteries like that,
> too. Worst threat is dropping one on your foot.
>
>>> 2) Maybe we will have robots handing them anyway.
>>
>>Robots for every service station in America is going to COST billions.
>>Not gonna happen.
>
> Nice negativity there.

It's REALISM.

> Truth is you have no idea how much its going
> to cost nor what the possible configurations of such robots might be.

I know they will cost a lot.More than most service stations can afford.
You might even encounter a union problem.
>
>>>>the big packs are meant to be recharged IN SITU.
>>>
>>> Yes, but that ain't the future. Individual, low-voltage batteries
>>> inserted fully charged into a car to form a high voltage battery by
>>> connecting them in series may be. Or maybe it'll be something else.
>>> Interchangeable parts... that's one of the keys. We can't do it with
>>> everyone making unique battery packs that take a long time to charge,
>>> and must be charged in the car. Not gonna replace IC powered cars
>>> that way.
>>>
>>Replaceable or "swappable" packs isn't gonna happen.
>>it's not economical or practical.
>
> Yeah, yeah, yeah... well, get ready for the economic collapse when the
> oil industry goes tits up, then. That can't go on forever, and
> continue giving $ to our enemies.
>
> Pessimists are never remembered in history.
>

YOu are pessimistic in believing oil is going to run out.

--
Jim Yanik
jyanik
at
localnet
dot com

Dave Head > wrote in
:

> On Wed, 03 Nov 2010 09:52:25 -0500, Jim Yanik >
> wrote:
>
>>Dave Head > wrote in
m:
>>
>>> On Tue, 02 Nov 2010 10:35:36 -0500, Jim Yanik >
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>>oil is not going to "run out".
>>>
>>> No, it's just going to get impossibly expensive, which will be
>>> effectively the same thing.
>>>
>>
>>it hasn't so far. Most nations artificially raise the price.
>>The US does by restricting production and refineries,forcing imports of
>>foreign oil.
>
> The economy tanked, people weren't buying as much 'cuz they couldn't
> afford as much, the price went down. Sounds like simple supply and
> demand to me.
>

I think if you check around,you wil find that the recent price surge was
due to market manipulation,speculators.

--
Jim Yanik
jyanik
at
localnet
dot com