NiFe USA series batteries?

[smily03]

Hi all,

I was just curious if anyone had experience with the Iron Edison USA series batteries that are made in the US? ironedison.com/iron-edison-usa-series-nickel-iron-nife-battery They're supposedly a lot better than the Chinese-made ones, and are supposed to have very long lives, even with occasional deep discharges: ironedison.com/images/products/Iron%20Edison/USA/Accelerated%20Cycle%20Life%20Testing.pdf

As I've been doing research on the technology, I've seen a lot of "he said-she said" type of stuff from folks who have a lot of opinions, but not a lot of experience with the batteries themselves, which doesn't help out at all. I don't want to start an empassioned war or anything like that. I just want to know, from folks who have been using the batteries, what their experiences have been?

Chris

[Sunking]

There is a very good reason not many people use them and even better reasons why no USA manufacture have made them since 1975. There is not even a Patent for them anymore Edison gave up. There is only 1 person here who you can trust, Mike the moderator has them. They appear to be a real PIA to maintain.

[SunEagle]

That website indicates those batteries are being made outside of Gainesville FL. and there is a 2013 copyright date code at the bottom of the page.

I did not see any dates on the spec sheets, cycle life or discharge test data. There was a 6/23/2012 date on the MSDS sheet.

So they could be currently being made in Florida or maybe not.

Maybe the OP smily03 would like to contact them to find out costs and delivery possibilities.

[Mike90250]

There is a very good reason not many people use them and even better reasons why no USA manufacture have made them since 1975. There is not even a Patent for them anymore Edison gave up. There is only 1 person here who you can trust, Mike the moderator has them. They appear to be a real PIA to maintain.

Mine are the chi-com brand from "Be Utility Free (CO, USA)". While the NiFe cells are large, heavy and inefficient and real thirsty distilled water suckers, they don't require SG testing - it's not the same process as LA, and they don't suffer from sulfation. That was a big worry off my plate in winter, with 3 months of lo/no sun. I still racked up a lot of generator hours but less than if I was trying to do absorbs on LA batteries. So it's different with each install and micro-climate.

[smily03]

Cool, thank you very much

And Mike - I was hoping that you would be able to reply. When I've been doing research on the internet, your posts and facebook pages have shown up a lot. I loved getting to see the install process of your batteries, and hoped that things were still going well with them

I contacted Iron Edison for more info, and this was part of their reply:

First, if you are looking at the 100Ah, those are part of our USA-Series and are manufactured by our partner Encell in Gainesville, FL. Encell has developed a proprietary electrolyte that is rated to last 30 years without replacement.

In regards to our Industrial Series batteries, we recommend an electrolyte refresh every 7-10 years. You are correct about the carbonate build up as being the reason for this refresh. Refresh cost is around 5% of the battery cost.

The information about a refresh being needed every 700 cycles is about original Edison batteries that just used KOH as the electrolyte. Modern Nickel Iron electrolyte adds a small amount of LiOH to the electrolyte to help prevent this carbonation and make the refresh needed about every 3,500 cycles (or 7-10 years). This is not a major concern for our clients.

The cost of LiOH has been on the increase because the demand for lithium is high. Local lab supply companies have recently decided to only supply LiOH to universities and research labs, which has us looking to China to buy it in the future. KOH is readily available.

I was definitely happy to get this information, but also take manufacturer information with a grain of salt just to be on the safe side. Which is why I was hoping to get the experience of folks who had been using them.



Personally, I love the idea of the NiFe batteries, especially if the claims hold true. As I've been digging into traditional LA batteries, it kind of concerned me how lightly I had to discharge them, and how oversized my battery bank would have to be, if I wanted to make them last for a good while. Plus, there's the whole fact that I'd have a ton of lead and acid sitting in the basement, the problem of hydrogen (which is handle-able, but still kind of uncomfortable.) And then the maintenance. And the problems with upgrading a bank, or replacing one bad battery out of a string. All of that stuff made me think that there had to be some better way.

Mike - I'm curious, now that you've had the system set up for a number of years, how is your capacity doing? I know you mentioned that during the winter seasons you run for a while without a full charge, and I'm guessing that means that you drain them pretty good. Have you had any problems with carbonate, etc.? And, how do you test for it? Is it just a "when the runtime drops, send off a sample" type of thing, or do you have a test kit, etc.? Or have you even had to do that yet?

Also, I know that I've read a lot of posts that say how inefficient they can be when charging/discharging. From what I've read, for LA batteries it seems like it's recommended to have roughly as many watts of panels as you do aH of batteries. Is that the case for NiFe as well? Or would the ratio be more of a double panel-to-battery ratio, etc.?

I'll try to not bug you with too many questions But I'm really excited about the potential of this. But at the same point, I want to make as informed of a decision as possible so that I don't throw a whole lot of money down the crapper.

[inetdog]

Cool, thank you very much

And Mike - I was hoping that you would be able to reply. When I've been doing research on the internet, your posts and facebook pages have shown up a lot. I loved getting to see the install process of your batteries, and hoped that things were still going well with them

I contacted Iron Edison for more info, and this was part of their reply:



I was definitely happy to get this information, but also take manufacturer information with a grain of salt just to be on the safe side. Which is why I was hoping to get the experience of folks who had been using them.



Personally, I love the idea of the NiFe batteries, especially if the claims hold true. As I've been digging into traditional LA batteries, it kind of concerned me how lightly I had to discharge them, and how oversized my battery bank would have to be, if I wanted to make them last for a good while. Plus, there's the whole fact that I'd have a ton of lead and acid sitting in the basement, the problem of hydrogen (which is handle-able, but still kind of uncomfortable.) And then the maintenance. And the problems with upgrading a bank, or replacing one bad battery out of a string. All of that stuff made me think that there had to be some better way.

Mike - I'm curious, now that you've had the system set up for a number of years, how is your capacity doing? I know you mentioned that during the winter seasons you run for a while without a full charge, and I'm guessing that means that you drain them pretty good. Have you had any problems with carbonate, etc.? And, how do you test for it? Is it just a "when the runtime drops, send off a sample" type of thing, or do you have a test kit, etc.? Or have you even had to do that yet?

Also, I know that I've read a lot of posts that say how inefficient they can be when charging/discharging. From what I've read, for LA batteries it seems like it's recommended to have roughly as many watts of panels as you do aH of batteries. Is that the case for NiFe as well? Or would the ratio be more of a double panel-to-battery ratio, etc.?

I'll try to not bug you with too many questions But I'm really excited about the potential of this. But at the same point, I want to make as informed of a decision as possible so that I don't throw a whole lot of money down the crapper.

The panel watts equals battery AH at 12V rule of thumb is specifically intended to match the current needs to prevent stratification along with the upper current limits for charging FLA batteries.
In addition to that you have the calculation of panel size relative to worst case sun hours and total 24H load.
The first rule goes out the window with NiFe, while the second rule requires that you add about 50% to the panel power calculated for direct energy replacement.
Mike can probably give you a finer tuned correction factor.

[Sunking]

NiFe batteries are only 60% charge efficient which means you need a lot more panel wattage than with FLA, just about twice as much for a given daily load.

Surprise surprise surprise. You would be well advised to look into lithium, they cost less and last as long.

[Mike90250]

.....

Mike - I'm curious, now that you've had the system set up for a number of years, how is your capacity doing? I know you mentioned that during the winter seasons you run for a while without a full charge, and I'm guessing that means that you drain them pretty good. Have you had any problems with carbonate, etc.? And, how do you test for it? Is it just a "when the runtime drops, send off a sample" type of thing, or do you have a test kit, etc.? Or have you even had to do that yet?

I have a chemical test kit that I need to break out and use. So far, no issues pointing to capacity loss

Also, I know that I've read a lot of posts that say how inefficient they can be when charging/discharging. From what I've read, for LA batteries it seems like it's recommended to have roughly as many watts of panels as you do aH of batteries. Is that the case for NiFe as well? Or would the ratio be more of a double panel-to-battery ratio, etc.?

NiFe is not efficient in the absorb portion of charge, lots of hydrogen boiling off. So yes, more PV is needed

I'll try to not bug you with too many questions But I'm really excited about the potential of this. But at the same point, I want to make as informed of a decision as possible so that I don't throw a whole lot of money down the crapper.

NiFe also suffers from high internal resistance, so you need a larger bank to compensate for that.

The best thing is there is no weekly hydrometer testing or logging. Just bi-weekly distilled water filling !

And for foul weather, no sulfation issues, they can cycle 40-70% for weeks without needing to get to full charge.

[Sundetective]

Hi all,

I was just curious if anyone had experience with the Iron Edison USA series batteries that are made in the US? https://ironedison.com/iron-edison-u...n-nife-battery They're supposedly a lot better than the Chinese-made ones, and are supposed to have very long lives, even with occasional deep discharges: https://ironedison.com/images/produc...%20Testing.pdf

As I've been doing research on the technology, I've seen a lot of "he said-she said" type of stuff from folks who have a lot of opinions, but not a lot of experience with the batteries themselves, which doesn't help out at all. I don't want to start an empassioned war or anything like that. I just want to know, from folks who have been using the batteries, what their experiences have been?

Chris

Does Thomas Edison and his chief engineer Dr. Hutchison count as
having any experience with NiFe ?

As the Books and Patents very clearly state they were using
Lithium Hydroxide very early in the game.
The US Patents don't Lie and you can get jail time if you fib in them
like they fib so much over at Iron Edison.

They know better- just Lie.

Sandia National Labs tested those Iron Edison USA Batteries.

Google: Sandia National Labs and Encell Technology.

The batteries are a joke.

The electrolyte is a joke.

Try to get a price on some replacement electrolyte 'just in case'.

Unfortunately the whole NiFe subject became a joke in recent years.

Changhong Batteries in China is the ONLY entity that is ever going to
give it to you straight and nobody listens to them.

What would they know?
They just make the NiFe Cells for over 30 years now.


Bill Blake

[Sunking]

Sandia National Labs tested those Iron Edison USA Batteries.

Google: Sandia National Labs and Encell Technology.

The batteries are a joke.

The electrolyte is a joke.

We finally agree on something. For that kind of money Lithium would be a much better choice with none of the restrictions and less cost. There is a very good Reason Edison let the Patent expire and quit making the batteries. Only real market they ever had was in Rail Road signalling and Mining emergency lighting.

[Sundetective]

We finally agree on something. For that kind of money Lithium would be a much better choice with none of the restrictions and less cost. There is a very good Reason Edison let the Patent expire and quit making the batteries. Only real market they ever had was in Rail Road signalling and Mining emergency lighting.

We agree on plenty.
In this case they are trying to run a con on people that do no homework
but spend plenty95.

For instance that shill download in the first post is bogus all the way.
It's not even on the NiFe Cells that they are selling.
Old Bill confronted dem about it a long time ago.
At least they did fess up to the con. I have to give them that.

It's a shame. NiFe could be such a wonderful technology if you could get
the Reagent grade LiOH at 40 grams per Liter changed every 2 years.

It would take a bossanova dude with balls but we grew too old
to talk turkey with the Chinamen in control.
Plus the market is very Limited.

Bill Blake

[inetdog]

Sandia National Labs tested those Iron Edison USA Batteries.

Google: Sandia National Labs and Encell Technology.

The batteries are a joke.

The electrolyte is a joke.

Try to get a price on some replacement electrolyte 'just in case'.

Unfortunately the whole NiFe subject became a joke in recent years.

Well, I read through the report at http://www.sandia.gov/ess/publicatio...2014-17462.pdf, and on first glance it seems to be favorable. Then, when you look at the test criteria it met, you get a somewhat different impression.

I would like to know more about the reconfiguration that took place between Phase I and Phase II. From two parallel strings to one string of two battery parallel pairs? That should not by itself have made the enormous difference in internal resistance that the two sets of 6C results showed. A 6C test with a terminal voltage of 3V seems pretty useless. But in Phase II for supposedly the same test the terminal voltage was 8V (still pretty low compared to a 100% SOC voltage of ~16V.)

And the accelerated life cycle test was terminated at about 40% of original capacity, compared to the FLA EOL criteria of 80% of initial capacity.

I assume that there is another Sandia report somewhere, since the one I found (essentially a summary of selected results rather than the full test results) did not discuss electrolyte at all.

[Sundetective]

Well, I read through the report at http://www.sandia.gov/ess/publicatio...2014-17462.pdf, and on first glance it seems to be favorable. Then, when you look at the test criteria it met, you get a somewhat different impression.

I would like to know more about the reconfiguration that took place between Phase I and Phase II. From two parallel strings to one string of two battery parallel pairs? That should not by itself have made the enormous difference in internal resistance that the two sets of 6C results showed. A 6C test with a terminal voltage of 3V seems pretty useless. But in Phase II for supposedly the same test the terminal voltage was 8V (still pretty low compared to a 100% SOC voltage of ~16V.)

And the accelerated life cycle test was terminated at about 40% of original capacity, compared to the FLA EOL criteria of 80% of initial capacity.

I assume that there is another Sandia report somewhere, since the one I found (essentially a summary of selected results rather than the full test results) did not discuss electrolyte at all.

That Sandia / Encell Technology, Iron Edison USA study just might be

the most corrupt, shameful piece of work that Sandia National Labs
has ever put out.

Naturally old Bill would Loves it if one of those turkeys
would get into it with me but they have feared me for years now.

I'm visiting a location with no Internet other than a little smart phone
so thank-you Inetdog for posting that Link.

To be honest with you I feel like Rhett Butler about it.
Really don't give a damn
other than a young fan of old Bill with money burning his pockets
was thinking about bitting into the con so I looked into it a good while back
for da man.
Patents and all.
Iron Edison and I peacefully discussed the poor sorry batteries a few times.
We were over an hour on the phone. Then email.

If you study that Sandia report 5 times your going to come up with 5 sets
of problems with it - I promise you.
Even with Encell themselves actually writing much of the report - if you look.

However being as the battery being studied never made it to the marketplace
(the last I heard) and what they sell now is only 100 Amp Hours -
'Answer me dis' - does anyone other than some Brandon Williams pigeon
really care ?

If some serious interest develops I will add a bit more.
Otherwise I'm still waiting for Aquion Energy to eventually 'face Sunking',
Learn him good and be my man.

Bill Blake

[smily03]

Forgive my response - I'm not trying to be critical or challenging, just trying to fully understand things and wade through everything.


When you mention that the China battery company is the only one that's honest about how bad the technology is compared to the alternatives, it makes me wonder - if it's so bad, why do they keep making them? You'd think that there would be more profitable ways they could use their resources. And it's good that they're being honest, but it only serves the other companies to be honest as well. Because if they're being outright deceitful on their product literature, people will sue them, especially in today's day and age.

I did peruse the Sandia article, and there was some interesting information in there. Some of the data looked good, but overall, the cycle lifetimes didn't. I mean, when you get to 150 or so cycles and it's down to 40% capacity, it does make you wonder about the longevity of the technology. But at the same point, that makes me wonder if at that point, you'd just need to replace the electrolyte, rather than the whole battery? That seems to be what Edison noted in his patents. If that's the case, then I think that it would be better to do a NiFe type battery, because it would be so much better for the environment, rather than ending up with a bunch of dead batteries.

Plus, I love the idea of being able to replace one individual cell and leave the rest of the cells alone. Or the idea of being able to just add additional cells to an existing bank to be able to increase either the voltage of aH of the bank at any point.

I'm not quite sure what you're meaning about them selling only the 100Ah batteries; they've got the 300Ah for sale on their website; the datasheet can be found here as well: http://ironedison.com/images/product...et%20300Ah.pdf

Also, I've seen a lot of posts in electric vehicle forums about the use of NiFe batteries and the successes they have there. Which, I'd think that the Lithium batteries would be a much better use in those applications, especially Lithium Iron batteries because of their added safety compared to lithium ion batteries.

I've been looking into Edison's patents, which I found a big list of here: http://edison.rutgers.edu/battpats.htm . I can understand why he himself wouldn't have renewed the patents on his batteries, because he would have been dead by the time they came up for renewal. From what I've been observing, in several of his patents, he references number 1379088 as the main Edison battery patent, which he tries to improve on later: http://edison.rutgers.edu/patents/01379088.PDF

Also, this is the patent for his enhanced electrolyte formulation: http://edison.rutgers.edu/patents/00876445.PDF

It's also interesting that Edison recommends regular overcharges as a means to keep the batteries properly functional, and states that failing to do so would result in decreased battery life: http://www.nickel-iron-battery.com/edison_brochure.pdf


I'm sorry, but I guess at this point I'm kind of frustrated. I'm trying to get to the bottom of whether the batteries are good, and wanted to be able to talk to people who actually had real-world hands-on experience with the technology. And I really appreciate Mike's responses, because he's actually using them. But there's just so much of the he said-she said stuff going on in this thread, which is exactly what I didn't want or need. It really doesn't help to be honest. And while I like and appreciate that other folks have opinions and input and research, there's so much uncertainty, adding conjecture doesn't really help me try to figure what's accurate and true :/

[Sundetective]

Forgive my response - I'm not trying to be critical or challenging, just trying to fully understand things and wade through everything.


When you mention that the China battery company is the only one that's honest about how bad the technology is compared to the alternatives, it makes me wonder - if it's so bad, why do they keep making them? You'd think that there would be more profitable ways they could use their resources. And it's good that they're being honest, but it only serves the other companies to be honest as well. Because if they're being outright deceitful on their product literature, people will sue them, especially in today's day and age.

I did peruse the Sandia article, and there was some interesting information in there. Some of the data looked good, but overall, the cycle lifetimes didn't. I mean, when you get to 150 or so cycles and it's down to 40% capacity, it does make you wonder about the longevity of the technology. But at the same point, that makes me wonder if at that point, you'd just need to replace the electrolyte, rather than the whole battery? That seems to be what Edison noted in his patents. If that's the case, then I think that it would be better to do a NiFe type battery, because it would be so much better for the environment, rather than ending up with a bunch of dead batteries.

Plus, I love the idea of being able to replace one individual cell and leave the rest of the cells alone. Or the idea of being able to just add additional cells to an existing bank to be able to increase either the voltage of aH of the bank at any point.

I'm not quite sure what you're meaning about them selling only the 100Ah batteries; they've got the 300Ah for sale on their website; the datasheet can be found here as well: http://ironedison.com/images/product...et%20300Ah.pdf

Also, I've seen a lot of posts in electric vehicle forums about the use of NiFe batteries and the successes they have there. Which, I'd think that the Lithium batteries would be a much better use in those applications, especially Lithium Iron batteries because of their added safety compared to lithium ion batteries.

I've been looking into Edison's patents, which I found a big list of here: http://edison.rutgers.edu/battpats.htm . I can understand why he himself wouldn't have renewed the patents on his batteries, because he would have been dead by the time they came up for renewal. From what I've been observing, in several of his patents, he references number 1379088 as the main Edison battery patent, which he tries to improve on later: http://edison.rutgers.edu/patents/01379088.PDF

Also, this is the patent for his enhanced electrolyte formulation: http://edison.rutgers.edu/patents/00876445.PDF

It's also interesting that Edison recommends regular overcharges as a means to keep the batteries properly functional, and states that failing to do so would result in decreased battery life: http://www.nickel-iron-battery.com/edison_brochure.pdf


I'm sorry, but I guess at this point I'm kind of frustrated. I'm trying to get to the bottom of whether the batteries are good, and wanted to be able to talk to people who actually had real-world hands-on experience with the technology. And I really appreciate Mike's responses, because he's actually using them. But there's just so much of the he said-she said stuff going on in this thread, which is exactly what I didn't want or need. It really doesn't help to be honest. And while I like and appreciate that other folks have opinions and input and research, there's so much uncertainty, adding conjecture doesn't really help me try to figure what's accurate and true :/

Don't be sorry.
If you go through the Posts here and at the Otherpower (Fieldlines)
Forum you will see that old Bill had NiFe batteries well over 40 years ago.
Therefore I can be your Light and your way.

Changhong doesn't condemn their own technology.

They just don't Lie and sugar coat the problems and Limitations of the Electrolye.

With no real viable reconditioning method like the old Edison NiFe Cells had
once the
Nickel Iron Battery Plates, especially the Positive Elements

get contaminated with VARIOUS CONTAMINATES,

GRAPHITE BEING DA CHIEF CAPACITY THIEF -

As Frank Zappa would have said 'the price of meat has just gone up and
your old Lady has just gone down.'

Carbonates is just a distraction. Just window dressing.

Changhong is just as worried about iron 'and other contaminates',

if not more so.

Read the latest NiFe Operators Manual from

Changhong and The Electric Indian
Or
Bear witness to the cekiert masterpiece Post here at SolarPanelTalk
called
'How much NICKEL is Really in a Nickel Iron (Ni-Fe) Battery ??

It's wonderful, brilliant, survival time battery technology that was Lost
and has Lost it's way.

Could be 'The Finest' by the Legendary SOS Band.

(See YouTube for this and ALL Matters).

Just way too Long of a Story to really mess with unless you had youth,
Big money, initiative and went to China - forcing things to happen.

Start with buying Pure Reagent Grade LIOH by the Metric Ton for under a
Penny per gram. TWO TIME bag the 25 Key paper bags of Lithium Hydroxide
and put dem inside the best
Mylar Bags.

Show some sense.
Slap them on a pallet, be a big boy and knock the BS out of this
silly impotent set-up.
Just old fashioned common sense for all of it.

Also bring back the incomparable

Edison Nickel Iron Battery Submarine Boat technology
and rock on.

Hire my old bud, Diamond John Mario D'Angelo, from the Legendary

BeUtilityFree Nickel Iron Battery Company

as your advisor.

Give me a dollar.


Mighty Joe Bill Blake