On Wed, 25 May 2005 17:16:20 GMT, "NSM" wrote:


"none" wrote in message
.. .

They quit selling them somewhere around the late 40's, early 50's.
Many were still using them for some time after.
My father was an electrical engineer and we had them well into the
60's.

I remember seeing something similar but they were the old Edison nickel-iron
batteries, used to start emergency generators. They had high self discharge
rates.

They kinda looked like an aquarium with a bolt on top, Which was made
out of something like bakelite.
You'd buy new plates and electrolyte unbolt the case and swap them
out.
The reason they discontinued their use in autos was for safety reasons
of course. One good smash up and you had acid soaked glass shards
flying around.

I never heard of them being used in autos although IIRC Edison wanted to use
them for an electric auto.

N

That was mostly in the day's of the model A's and T's.(I grew up on a
fam and we still had a working T in the shed, that's where I remember
seeing them first.
Later my father, and electrical engineer, who worked in industrial
power service had some of them that were indeed used for backup power.