WHY did they stop manufacturing Nickel-IRON batteries :(

I stumbled upon Wiki looking for Long Battery Life in Rechargables....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nickel-iron_battery is one such battery that will last for 30 - 50 YEARS!!!... that article mentions

Edison's batteries were made from about 1903 to 1972 by the Edison Battery Storage Company located in East Orange, NJ. They were quite profitable for the company. In 1972 the battery company was sold to the Exide Battery Corporation which discontinued making the battery in 1975. Edison was disappointed that his battery was not adopted for starting internal combustion engines and that electric vehicles went out of production only a few years after his battery was introduced. He actually developed the battery to be the battery of choice for electric vehicles which he thought would be the preferred transportation mode in the early 1900's. The battery enjoyed wide use for railroad signaling, fork lift, and standby power applications. There are no Nickel Iron batteries manufactured in the Western world at this time (2007), but they are still manufactured in China.

Click to expand...

why did they STOP manufacturing it???.. any links where I can get them in AA or D Sizes....

these things combined with new Gen LED's could make extremely durable lights...

http://www.mpoweruk.com/nickel_iron.htm another link...

I would assume its limitations were a large part of the reason "Its limitations, namely, low specific energy, poor charge retention, and poor low-temperature performance, and its high cost of manufacture compared with the lead-acid battery led to a decline in usage along with it having the lowest energy-to-weight ratio"

Sounds like a good battery for telephone central office backup but not too many other things.

Greg

The low reactivity of the active components limits the high rate performance of the cells. They cells take a charge slowly, and give it up slowly.

Click to expand...

This evidently means there is a high internal resistance. It might be OK for low drain applications but probably not for high performance LED or incan lights. Also the articles mention low energy density, which would translate into shorter runtimes or larger batery size......
Just MHO. Nice find

I agree with Fester in that they wouldn't last as long with high drain applications. By the way, I have 6 GE Ni-Cd C cells that are over 30 years old and still going strong. I have only used them in light drain applications like radios and boom boxes.

greg_in_canada said:

Sounds like a good battery for telephone central office backup but not too many other things.
Greg

Click to expand...

Just for the record:

Actually, a telco CO battery array must deliver VERY high current when the float charge is removed (among the highest steady state loads batteries are routinely used for, in fact). You definitely don't want to be nearby if a CO battery shorts.

Individual local loops are only 23ma, but the battery rack serves many of them at once (and also powers the switches, etc).

I still have an old 1000A Columbia "tong" DC ammeter from my telco days.

H. Caul

Hi there Viren,


If you had an AA cell of this type it would probably be rated at
something like 200mAh (compare this to 2500mAh NiMH) and the
voltage would drop down quickly. This would probably make it
rather impractical by todays standards. Note high self discharge
too, which i really hate
There might still be special applications for it today but i dont think
any of them would be for flashlights unless someone really needs
rechargeable battery power desperately and cant get any other cells.



Advantages.................................
Very robust.
Withstands overcharge and over-discharge
Accepts high depth of discharge - deep cycling.
Can remain discharged for long periods without damage, whereas a Lead Acid
battery needs to be stored in a charged state.
The ability of this system to survive frequent cycling is due to the low
solubility of the reactants in the electrolyte - potassium hydroxide.
Lifetime of 30 years possible

Shortcomings.............................................
Low cell voltage.
Very heavy and bulky.
The low reactivity of the active components limits the high rate performance
of the cells. The cells take a charge slowly, and give it up slowly.
Low coulombic efficiency, typically less than 65%
Steep voltage drop off with state of charge
Low energy density.
High self discharge rate

I read that Jay Leno has an Edison Electric in his car collection, with the original Ni-Fe battery, and it STILL HOLDS A CHARGE!

MrAl said:

Advantages.................................
Very robust.
Withstands overcharge and over-discharge
Accepts high depth of discharge - deep cycling.
Can remain discharged for long periods without damage, whereas a Lead Acid
battery needs to be stored in a charged state.
The ability of this system to survive frequent cycling is due to the low
solubility of the reactants in the electrolyte - potassium hydroxide.
Lifetime of 30 years possible

Shortcomings.............................................
Low cell voltage.
Very heavy and bulky.
The low reactivity of the active components limits the high rate performance
of the cells. The cells take a charge slowly, and give it up slowly.
Low coulombic efficiency, typically less than 65%
Steep voltage drop off with state of charge
Low energy density.
High self discharge rate

Click to expand...

Solar garden lights, with a bit of control circuitry to overcome the steep voltage drop off? Probably cheaper to use NiCd anyway. :thinking:

mmm,a solar light the size of a beer can with a NiFe cell the size of an RV,nobodys gona steel it lol

HCaul said:

Just for the record:

Actually, a telco CO battery array must deliver VERY high current when the float charge is removed (among the highest steady state loads batteries are routinely used for, in fact). You definitely don't want to be nearby if a CO battery shorts.

Individual local loops are only 23ma, but the battery rack serves many of them at once (and also powers the switches, etc).

I still have an old 1000A Columbia "tong" DC ammeter from my telco days.

H. Caul

Click to expand...

I think you are confusing 'high current" with "high discharge rate". For a 10,000 A-H battery, 1000A would be a low rate, even though it's quite a high current. For a 100 mA-H battery, 200 mA would be a high rate, even though it's a low current. Certainly backup batteries for telco applications need to have more than an hour of reserve capacity, thus would be large enough that the load current would be considered low-rate.

It sounds like NiFe batteries are good where you don't care much about how big the battery has to be, but you do care about how long it lasts and how well it can handle abuse. In other words, great for telco and solar home applications, but bad for flashlights. No suprise then, that they are made in big sizes appropriate for telco and solar homes, but not in small sizes appropriate for flashlights.

D