Académique Documents
Professionnel Documents
Culture Documents
This catalog features a comprehensive look at the importance of batteries and routine battery testing and
maintenance. In addition to this reference guide, you can go to our website anytime . . . www.avointl.com . . .
for the latest in new battery testing products, applications, and other helpful ideas.
Its your on-line resource book when you need electrical testing and maintenance equipment, applications and
information. You can use this on-line service regularly to get important information in the areas listed below
Product Information
Find the latest features and specifications for every product offered by AVO with an easy-to-use index to quickly
locate products of interest.
Production Application and Selection Guides
Explore a wide variety of application guides and technical notes to help you solve problems or learn how to
better use or select particular test equipment.
ET&M News
Current news and articles about electrical testing and maintenance, press releases, a list of industry events,
and success stories in the electrical test and maintenance field are all available to keep you up to date on the
latest happenings.
Support Services
Explains how to take advantage of the many support services available to you in the areas of customer service,
hardware and software technical assistance, parts, accessories, and repair services, and extended warranty
coverage.
How to Contact Us
Complete information on sales offices, manufacturing locations, customer service support, metrology and
repair services, and more are listed for east contact.
About AVO
An overview of AVO International and our three flagship brand names . . . MEGGER, BIDDLE , and MULTI-AMP
is provided.
Our Web Site Continues to Expand
Visit our web site regularly because new features and capabilities are being added all the time.
Volta invented the battery in 1800. Plant perfected the lead-acid battery in 1859. It was a good design then, but with refinements over the
decades, it has become a critically important back-up power source.
The refinements include improved alloys, grid designs, jar and cover
materials and improved jar-to-cover and post seals. The most revolutionary development was the valve-regulated battery. Nickel-cadmium
has seen many of the same types of changes over the years.
Lead-acid Overview
Pocket plate
Flat plate
Plate sulphation
Hard shorts (paste lumps)
IMPEDANCE:
WHAT IS IT AND
WHY IT WORKS SO WELL
Impedance is resistance in ac
terms. With regard to dc battery
systems, it indicates the condition
of batteries without harming or
stressing them in any way. Since
it tests the condition of the entire
electrical path of a battery from
terminal plate to terminal plate,
impedance can find weaknesses in
the battery easily and reliably.
Applying an ac test signal to the
terminal plates performs the test.
Then measure both the total ac
current in the string and the voltage drop of each unit in the string
by measuring each cell and intercell connector consecutively until the entire string is measured.
Impedance is calculated, displayed and stored. As cells age,
the internal impedance increases
(see the graph to the right). By
measuring impedance, the condition of each cell in the string can
be measured and trended to determine when to replace a cell or
the string aiding in planning budgetary needs.
The impedance test is a true fourwire, Kelvin-type measurement to
provide excellent reliability and
highly reproducible data on which
to base sound decisions with regard to battery maintenance and
replacement.
Each battery type has many failure modes, some of which are more prevalent than others. In the case of flooded lead-acid, the predominant failure mode is plate growth. The growth rate has been well characterized
and is taken into account when designing batteries. In many battery data
sheets, there is a specification for clearance at the bottom of the jar to
allow for plate growth in accordance with its rated lifetime, for example
20 years.
The normal failure mode is positive grid corrosion. The grids are lead
alloys (lead-calcium, lead-antimony, lead-antimony-selenium) that convert to lead oxide over time. Since the lead oxide is a bigger crystal than
lead metal alloy, the plate grows. Battery manufacturers design for extra
space in the jars to account for this growth. At the designed end-of-life
the plates will have grown sufficiently to pop the tops off of the batteries. But excessive cycling, temperature and overcharging can also increase the speed of positive grid corrosion.
% Battery Life
IEEE RECOMMENDED
PRACTICES
IEEE 450-1995
IEEE Recommended Practice for
Maintenance, Testing and Replacement of Vented Lead-acid
Batteries for Stationary Applications describes the frequency
and type of measurements that
need to be taken to validate the
condition of the battery. The frequency of tests ranges from
monthly to annually. Some of the
monthly tests include string voltage, appearance, ambient temperature, float current, etc. Quarterly tests include specific gravity,
cell voltage and temperature
(=10% of cells). Annual tests are
performed on the entire string.
Additionally, the resistance to
ground of the battery rack and intercell connection resistance need
to be measured. Other tests made
need to be performed based on
the values measured during periodic tests and battery usage (cycling history).
IEEE 1106-1995
IEEE Recommended Practice for
Installation, Maintenance, Testing
and Replacement of Vented NickelCadmium Batteries for Stationary
Applications has similar recommended practices as IEEE 450.
IEEE 1188-1996
IEEE Recommended Practice for
Maintenance, Testing and Replacement of Valve-Regulated
Lead-Acid Batteries for Stationary
Applications defines the recommended tests and frequency.
VRLA cells have been classified
into tiers of criticality of the installation. The frequency and type of
tests vary based on the batterys
tier.
INSULATION RESISTANCE
Leaking cells can lead to reduced
battery capacity, system inefficiencies, conditions hazardous to
personnel and, in rare cases, lead
to fires. A cell can leak for a variety of reasons including mishandling during shipping or installation, poor post-seals, overcharging, excessive plate growth, etc.
This off-line test applies a dc voltage, say 500 V dc, between the
buss and the rack, then measures
the dc leakage current to calculate
resistance in M or G. The
higher the resistance is the better.
This test is recommended at installation and whenever a leak
may be suspected (from telltale
signs such as salt buildup). This
test must be performed while the
battery or cell is off-line to prevent
shorting the battery since a dc
voltage is applied to the battery.
GROUND FAULTS
ON DC SYSTEMS
When ground faults occur on floating battery systems and, in some
cases, grounded systems, critical
components in the system may
not operate properly. A reduction
in system readiness may then occur. Ground faults in excess of 100
k are rarely worrisome. Sometimes, in less critical systems, a
single fault is not worrisome, either. But when the total ground
faults are less than 30-50 k, system reliability is suspect.
A fault is traced by applying an ac
(25 Hz) current signal into the dc
buss. Simply trace the circuits
with the highest current values
until the faults are located. Faults
can be traced easily regardless of
the number of distribution panels
or circuits because the tracer is
merely following the strength of
the ac signal. System integrity is
maintained because it is an on-line
ac test and is designed to prevent
system trips.
4
To the left are four graphs depicting the difference between accuracy and repeatability.
Naturally, everyone wants the
best case but it is not always
practical to achieve. So lets make
it easy to understand. Accuracy is
the closeness of a measurement to
the true value, in this example,
zero. Repeatability is the closeness of readings to each other. The
difference between repeatability
and accuracy is called bias
which can be easily calculated but
only if there is excellent precision.
In the case of trending data, precision is far more important since
you want to make sure that the
result you get is close to the result you got last time unless real
changes have truly occurred. Only
through solid repeatability can
one make sure that the trend is
due to real changes, not due to
poor equipment.
Float voltage indicates that the charger is working, that is, state-of-charge.
It does not indicate the state-of-health (condition) of the cell. It indicates that the cell is fully charged but dont confuse fully charged with
full capacity. There have been many times that the float voltage is within
acceptable limits and the battery fails. A low float voltage may indicate
that there is a short in the cell. This is evidenced by a float voltage at
about 2.06 or below for lead-acid (if the charger is set for 2.17 V per cell).
In some cases a cell floats considerably higher than the average. This
may be caused by the high float blotage cell compensating for another
cell that is weak and is floating low. It is possible that one cell floats
much higher to compensate for several cells floating a little low. The
total of all cells voltages must equal the charger setting.
What are the recommended maintenance practices for the
different types of batteries?
IEEE recommended (Maintenance) practices cover the three main types
of batteries: Flooded Lead-acid (IEEE 450), Valve-regulated Lead-acid (IEEE
1188), and Nickel-cadmium (IEEE 1106). Generally speaking, maintenance
is essential to ensure adequate backup time. There are differing levels of
maintenance and varying maintenance intervals depending upon the battery type, site criticality, and site conditions. For example, if a site has
an elevated ambient temperature, then the batteries will age more quickly
implying more frequent maintenance visits and battery replacements.
How important is intercell connection resistance?
Our experience has found that many battery failures are due to loose
intercell connections that heat up and melt open rather than cell failure.
Whether a cell is weak or an intercell connector is loose, one bad apple
does spoil the whole bushel.
When lead acid batteries are frequently cycled, the negative terminal
may cold flow, thus loosening the connection.
What are the most common failure modes and how can
impedance find them?
There are numerous failure modes, again depending upon battery type.
Briefly, some failure modes for flooded are: plate sulphation, sediment
buildup and positive grid corrosion. For VRLA, some failure modes include: dry-out (loss-of-compression), positive grid corrosion and cell
leakage. Please refer to the Battery Failure Modes Application Note
which can be found on the AVO website (www.avointl.com) for more
detailed information.
MBITE
BITE2
The Biddle BITE 2P determines the condition of lead-acid and nickelcadmium cells up to 7000 Ah. An advanced feature set has been developed that includes Pass/Warning/Fail calculations based on a user-entered baseline value, advanced printing functions and more. The case of
the BITE 2P consists of both the transmitter and a carrying case for all of
the standard accessories and some optional accessories, in an all-in-one
unit.
The BITE 2P receiver stores the readings in its internal memory. These
measurements, along with other maintenance data such as ambient and
pilot cell temperatures and ac ripple current, assist in determining the
overall condition of battery systems.
C-BITE
8
Utility substations
Refineries
Naval and shipping operations
Telecom backup systems
INTERCELL CONNECTION
RESISTANCE
Many times batteries fail not because of weak cells but due to
weak intercell connections. Torquing is a mechanical method to ensure that the electrical path resistance is very low. But it does not
truly indicate the quality of the
electrical path resistance. The
only true method is to measure
each intercell connection resistance with a Digital Low Resistance Ohmmeter. Additionally, it
is recommended that this be done
before the battery is commissioned. This method will find if a
washer is stuck on the No-Ox between the post and the intercell
connector whereas torquing will
not. IEEE Recommended Practices
specify that ten percent of the intercell connectors be measured
quarterly and all intercell connectors annually. They further specify
that the variation of intercell connection resistance be less than 10
percent. This translates into 7
on a 70- intercell connection
resistance.
DLRO10
In addition to its features similar to the DLRO10, the DLRO10X has the
ability to download test results either in real time, or after storage in on
board memory. In real time, data is output to the RS-232 port as ASCII
text, suitable for printing on a serial printer or for capture by a suitable
PC program.
BITE 2P