Railroad rails
 

How were rails made in the 1800's?Were they cast or did they have
rolling mills back then using steam or hydropower?

Railroad rails
 

In article , ED ROGERS
wrote:

How were rails made in the 1800's?Were they cast or did they have
rolling mills back then using steam or hydropower?



Rolling mills have been around a loooooong time.

The wheels for the trains started off as cast, but later were
drop-forged.

Railroad rails
 

On Mon, 29 Mar 2004 00:23:27 -0500 (EST), (ED ROGERS) wrote:
How were rails made in the 1800's?Were they cast or did they have
rolling mills back then using steam or hydropower?

The first rolling mill made modern T rails were used on the Camden & Amboy
(New Jersey) railroad in 1832. The invention of the T rail is credited to Robert
Stevens, chief engineer of Camden & Amboy. Stevens is also credited with
the invention of the hooked railroad spike. The initial rolling was done in the
Guest mills in Wales. Stevens had to go to the mills in person to work out
the problems of rolling T rails.

Previous to that, wrought or cast iron rails of about 1 yard length were
used in England and elsewhere. These were fish bellied bars which rested
in cast iron "chairs" set on the soil. Also used were wooden beams set on
the soil and topped with flat iron bars

But the rolled T rail spiked to wooden cross ties bedded in gravel soon took
over as the dominant form of railroad rail. Railroad rail rolling mills soon
became a common sight wherever steel was made and railroads were built.

Gary

Railroad rails
 

"Ernie Leimkuhler" wrote in message
...
In article , ED ROGERS
wrote:

How were rails made in the 1800's?Were they cast or did they have
rolling mills back then using steam or hydropower?



Rolling mills have been around a loooooong time.

The wheels for the trains started off as cast, but later were
drop-forged.

Rolling mills have been around since the mid-1700s, in England. I think the
first ones in the US were built late in the century. Some of the early ones
in England were steam-powered.

What they rolled, though, was "puddled" iron, a late version of wrought
iron. Railroad rails were made of wrought iron until the 1860s, at which
time they began to switch to steel. By 1880, the making of iron rails had
nearly ceased.

Ed Huntress

Railroad rails
 

One of the problems of the "strap rails" was the rail coming off the wood
and coming up into the car as it was going down the rail, this killed and
hurt many.

Railroad rails
 

Ernie Leimkuhler wrote:

In article , ED ROGERS
wrote:


How were rails made in the 1800's?Were they cast or did they have
rolling mills back then using steam or hydropower?




Rolling mills have been around a loooooong time.

The wheels for the trains started off as cast, but later were
drop-forged.

I have a book ("What Steel Shall I Use?") from 1940 or so that lists
then-current railroad technology as a cast wheel hub with a steel tire
shrunk on. At some point I'm sure they went to all-steel, but I don't
know when.

---------------------------------------
Tim Wescott
Wescott Design Services
http://www.wescottdesign.com

Railroad rails
 

These were called: "Snakeheads"! And, yes, they were NASTY!

Dan Mitchell
==========

Wayne wrote:

One of the problems of the "strap rails" was the rail coming off the wood
and coming up into the car as it was going down the rail, this killed and
hurt many.

Railroad rails
 

There was a period when wood and even paper cored wheels were used. The
paper wheels were a large disk of thick compressed paper, with an
attached bushing for the axle, and an outer steel tire. Some of these
had a ring of visible bolts to attach the paper disk to a flange on the
axle. Advantages included quieter operation, and some resiliency.

The cast iron wheels frequently had a spiral-ribbed back surface to
assist in heat radiation (from braking), and to reduce overall weight.

Due to many failures of the cast iron wheels, all steel ones were
eventually required. Most such wheels are one piece, pressed on their
axles, but some of the larger ones, especially on locomotives, have
replaceable steel 'tires' at their rims. Such tires were the norm on
steam locos, but rare on today's Diesels.

Dan Mitchell
==========

Tim Wescott wrote:

Ernie Leimkuhler wrote:

In article , ED ROGERS
wrote:


How were rails made in the 1800's?Were they cast or did they have
rolling mills back then using steam or hydropower?




Rolling mills have been around a loooooong time.

The wheels for the trains started off as cast, but later were
drop-forged.

I have a book ("What Steel Shall I Use?") from 1940 or so that lists
then-current railroad technology as a cast wheel hub with a steel tire
shrunk on. At some point I'm sure they went to all-steel, but I don't
know when.

---------------------------------------
Tim Wescott
Wescott Design Services
http://www.wescottdesign.com

Railroad rails
 

Thanks gentlemen for your replies.I didn't know the power source for the
rolling mill and how it was capable, with the technology of the day,in
exerting the high pressures to form the rail.Did they use hydraulics to
get the pressure applied?

Railroad rails
 

ED ROGERS wrote:

Thanks gentlemen for your replies.I didn't know the power source for the
rolling mill and how it was capable, with the technology of the day,in
exerting the high pressures to form the rail.Did they use hydraulics to
get the pressure applied?


Rolling mills produce product by rolling it through
progressively reduced grooves in opposing rolls at fixed
centres. After each pass the material is shifted to the next reduction groove.
As the rolls are reversible there is minimal lost time.
The reduction steps are biggest at the beginning due to
the heat of the material, reducing towards the finishing
stages.

Tom

Tom

Railroad rails
 

No hydraulics used in any of the mills. The old mills used screw
jacks, mostly manually cranked to lower the rollers. Roller
stands were run off a line shaft using massive mechanical
clutches, then fed to a gear reduction to drive the rollers. Each
stand in a series of roller stands has to run faster than the
last since the metal has been squeezed smaller and longer. A big
issue in running the mill is to make sure the each roller stand
is adjusted to match the speed of the next roller down the line.
Any mismatch and you get bulging or pulling.

As an aside, take a look at the profiles for the various "I" beam
and channel iron stock. Example: an 8" I beam of any weight has
the same inside flange to flange dimension as all of the 8"
channel products. They had one size of roller to roll the
channel, adjusted the rest of the machine to make the web thicker
but not the flange thicker. The result is that the heavier beams
are not very ecomincal for their strength. Too much metal in the
web, not enough in the flange. But that was somewhat ok since
most of those beams where rivited into larger beams with the
ubiquous cross hatch straps seen on old bridgres. That put the
metal on the outside of the shape where it needs to be for max
strength to weight ratio.

One more thing to mull over: the size of beams has increased over
the years. The largest beam listed in my 13th edition Machinery
Handbook from 1946 is 120 pound per foot in a 24" beam. Modern
mills will do triple that per foot. Bigger equipment.

ED ROGERS wrote:
Thanks gentlemen for your replies.I didn't know the power source for the
rolling mill and how it was capable, with the technology of the day,in
exerting the high pressures to form the rail.Did they use hydraulics to
get the pressure applied?

Railroad rails
 

If you would like to see one of the engines that powered rolling mills at
the turn of the century, take a look at www.todengine.org . There are only
two rolling mill steam engines in existence in the U.S., one of which we
have here in Youngstown and the other is preserved in Pittsburgh.

BTW, William Tod Co. started building rolling mill engines in the 1850s.

Rick

"ED ROGERS" wrote in message
...
How were rails made in the 1800's?Were they cast or did they have
rolling mills back then using steam or hydropower?

Railroad rails
 

On Mon, 29 Mar 2004 17:02:56 -0500 (EST), (ED ROGERS) wrote:
Thanks gentlemen for your replies.I didn't know the power source for the
rolling mill and how it was capable, with the technology of the day,in
exerting the high pressures to form the rail.Did they use hydraulics to
get the pressure applied?

The Shofield mill in Atlanta (destroyed by Sherman in 1864, only the
heavy uprights supporting the rolls survived the fire and vandalism to
make the site recognizable) was powered by a stationary steam engine.
If there was a convenient source of water power at a particular plant
site, that could have been used instead.

A rolling mill forges the hot steel using a series of opposing pairs of
very large, very heavy steel or cast iron rolls mounted on fixed centers
and powered by the stationary engine. Each pair is closer together
than the preceding pair. As the hot ingot passes successively through
each set of rolls, it gets longer and thinner. In the case of a rail rolling
mill, the rolls are shaped so that the ingot takes on the desired form
in steps as it passes successively through each pair of rolls. The
Shofield plant had 8 sets of rolls.

The ingots come out of the ingot furnace at yellow heat, so they are
soft and plastic. The ingots, purchased from a bloomery, blast furnace,
or latter a Bessemer plant, were about 8"x8"x48" as they came out of
the ingot furnace. After going through the rolls, you had a 20 foot long
formed rail. (These were the fairly light 20 pound per foot rails used
during the Civil War era.)

The only hydraulics in the plant were the water pumps that pumped
cooling water on and through the rolls to keep them from softening
due to contact with the very hot steel. A rolling mill required a lot of
water, so it was usually located along a river or large creek. The
Shofield plant drew its water from Peachtree Creek.

Gary

Railroad rails
 

In article 4AU9c.144359$LX.16582456
@news4.srv.hcvlny.cv.net, says...
"Ernie Leimkuhler" wrote in message
...
In article , ED ROGERS
wrote:

How were rails made in the 1800's?Were they cast or did they have
rolling mills back then using steam or hydropower?



Rolling mills have been around a loooooong time.

The wheels for the trains started off as cast, but later were
drop-forged.

Rolling mills have been around since the mid-1700s, in England. I think the
first ones in the US were built late in the century. Some of the early ones
in England were steam-powered.


There was at least one water powered rolling mill at the
Saugus Ironworks about 100 years earlier, though the
ironworks was operational for only a very short time. It
was restored as a National Historic Site in the 1950's.

http://www.nps.gov/sair/index.htm

I remember seeing it run along with the big trip hammers
and bellows for the furnace when I was a kid. Unfortunately
no fire or hot metal.

Ned Simmons

Railroad rails
 

I got to see an old rolling mill, still in use, in 1977. Bethelehem
Steel in Bethlehem PA was still using a steam powered mill to roll
I-beams. It was interesting, but kind of a bad sign that they were
still using anything that old in production, it should have been in a
museum. (Fortunately, I did not work for them long). They said that
this mill had rolled the beams for the skyscrapers in New York, as I
remember it they were referring to around 1900. This particular mill
had been updated with electrical adjustment of the thickness, and
electrical controls, but the rollers were still powered by steam.

Rolling mills have been around for a long time. I am pretty sure that
they would have been steam powered in the 1800s, you need some speed to
roll metal before it cools. Also, steam is more readily reversible than
water power, and normally the metal goes through the mill several times
to reach the final dimension, so reversible is good.

Richard

-------------------

ED ROGERS wrote:

How were rails made in the 1800's?Were they cast or did they have
rolling mills back then using steam or hydropower?

Railroad rails
 

In my county, rails made by Carnegie Steel Corporation in the 1890s are still
in use.

Pre-1936 rails are usually removed, not because they are necessarily defective,
but because their salvage value is greater than post-1936 (Controlled Cooled)
rails, for use in making razor blades.

Railroad rails
 

Richard,

The mill you are referring to was the Grey wide flange beam mill. It was
powered by three William Tod Company steam engines, built in 1906. The plant
last operated in 1995 and the mill including the last remaining engine was
to be preserved for an industrial museum, however when Bethlehem declared
bankruptcy there was not enough money to buy the engine and mill and it was
scrapped a few months ago.

Rick

"Richard Ferguson" wrote in message
...
I got to see an old rolling mill, still in use, in 1977. Bethelehem
Steel in Bethlehem PA was still using a steam powered mill to roll
I-beams. It was interesting, but kind of a bad sign that they were
still using anything that old in production, it should have been in a
museum. (Fortunately, I did not work for them long). They said that
this mill had rolled the beams for the skyscrapers in New York, as I
remember it they were referring to around 1900. This particular mill
had been updated with electrical adjustment of the thickness, and
electrical controls, but the rollers were still powered by steam.

Rolling mills have been around for a long time. I am pretty sure that
they would have been steam powered in the 1800s, you need some speed to
roll metal before it cools. Also, steam is more readily reversible than
water power, and normally the metal goes through the mill several times
to reach the final dimension, so reversible is good.

Richard

-------------------

ED ROGERS wrote:

How were rails made in the 1800's?Were they cast or did they have
rolling mills back then using steam or hydropower?

Railroad rails
 

Again thanks for your input.I was amazed at the degree of the machine
technology for that time.To top it off the rails don't have" MADE IN
CHINA" on them.(I hope)

Railroad rails
 

On Tue, 30 Mar 2004 17:15:35 -0500 (EST), (ED ROGERS) wrote:
Again thanks for your input.I was amazed at the degree of the machine
technology for that time.To top it off the rails don't have" MADE IN
CHINA" on them.(I hope)

Rolling mills (though not railroad rail rolling mills) have been around
since at least the second century AD. The ancients were as smart
as we are. We've found ancient machines, instruments, even batteries,
that rival anything from the industrial age. But in ancient times the
technology didn't spread far beyond the shops of its inventors.

What's changed in the last two centuries are the economic and
political systems which allow us to organize to exploit technology
on much larger scales. Capitalism, and the limited liability corporation,
upward mobility, relative freedom, etc have allowed us to harness
the native cleverness and greed of human beings on a much larger
scale than has ever been possible before.

Gary

Railroad rails
 

When we talk about rolling mills, keep in mind that Bessemer did not produce
steel until 1855. Prior to that, the Iron-Carbon-Silicon chemistry was a
mystery.


"Gary Coffman" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 30 Mar 2004 17:15:35 -0500 (EST), (ED ROGERS)
wrote:
Again thanks for your input.I was amazed at the degree of the machine
technology for that time.To top it off the rails don't have" MADE IN
CHINA" on them.(I hope)

Rolling mills (though not railroad rail rolling mills) have been around
since at least the second century AD. The ancients were as smart
as we are. We've found ancient machines, instruments, even batteries,
that rival anything from the industrial age. But in ancient times the
technology didn't spread far beyond the shops of its inventors.

What's changed in the last two centuries are the economic and
political systems which allow us to organize to exploit technology
on much larger scales. Capitalism, and the limited liability corporation,
upward mobility, relative freedom, etc have allowed us to harness
the native cleverness and greed of human beings on a much larger
scale than has ever been possible before.

Gary

Railroad rails
 

On Wed, 31 Mar 2004 05:17:46 GMT, "Alan Black" wrote:
When we talk about rolling mills, keep in mind that Bessemer did not produce
steel until 1855. Prior to that, the Iron-Carbon-Silicon chemistry was a
mystery.

It wasn't a mystery, but the Bessemer process, soon followed by the open
hearth process, made steel cheap to produce in mass quantities. Prior to these
processes being put into place, steel was made by the crucible process and
by carburization of wrought iron (blister steel). Those methods were not cheap,
nor well adapted to mass production, but they were capable of producing
excellent steel long before Bessemer made it cheap.

Prior to cheap mass produced steel, rolling mills rolled wrought iron.
(Much of the iron age depended on wrought iron as the primary form
of malleable iron.)

Gary

Railroad rails
 

Gary Coffman wrote:



Rolling mills (though not railroad rail rolling mills) have been around
since at least the second century AD. The ancients were as smart
as we are. We've found ancient machines, instruments, even batteries,
that rival anything from the industrial age. But in ancient times the
technology didn't spread far beyond the shops of its inventors.

Batteries? Care to expand on that statement? (Assuming you are talking about
something earlier than Leydan jars.)

Joe

Railroad rails
 

Hi, Related Info. I needed an anvil for jewelery making. Decided to
cut short piece from railroad rail with chop saw. That rail was
classic definition of "work hardened". I really beat up a 14 inch chop
saw blade to cut through the rail. Darrell

Railroad rails
 

The 'head' (top) of a railroad rail is normally hardened for wear
resistance. The 'web' (vertical piece) and 'base' (bottom) are usually
NOT hardened, for resiliency. A rail is a little like a bandsaw blade,
hard on one edge and soft on the other.

And, yes, age and 'work hardening' can alter things. Remember that a
rail in service is being continually re-'rolled' every time a train
passes over it. The railroads are currently playing a 'game' of
increasing car weight (axle loading) at the expense of rail life, trying
to find the optimum overall cost efficiency. Rails don't last as long as
they used to due to the overloading. A typical 4-axle freight car used
to weigh 50 tons, then 70 tons, then 100 tons, and now up to 125 tons.
The rails pay the price, and some railroads have backed off on the 125
ton cars.

Another cause of rail failure is 'hammering' as the cars passed over the
rail joints. Rails used to be 39 feet long. Now 1200 ft lengths are
common. LOTS fewer joints to cause problems.

Dan Mitchell
==========

Darrell Coble wrote:

Hi, Related Info. I needed an anvil for jewelery making. Decided to
cut short piece from railroad rail with chop saw. That rail was
classic definition of "work hardened". I really beat up a 14 inch chop
saw blade to cut through the rail. Darrell

Railroad rails
 

On Wed, 31 Mar 2004 09:40:11 -0500, Joe wrote:
Batteries? Care to expand on that statement? (Assuming you are talking about
something earlier than Leydan jars.)

A Leyden jar is a capacitor. What I'm talking about are primary cells.
Archeologists have found a six cell battery in the Middle East that is
3,000 years old. The suspected use was for electroplating coinage,
ie counterfeiting, by some Ye Olde Tyme Alchemist.

Through the years, the goal of thousands and thousands of secretive
alchemists was to turn lead into gold. This old boy may have figured
out how, at least well enough to run a scam.

Gary

Railroad rails
 

In article , Gary Coffman says...
ars.)

A Leyden jar is a capacitor. What I'm talking about are primary cells.
Archeologists have found a six cell battery in the Middle East that is
3,000 years old. The suspected use was for electroplating coinage,
ie counterfeiting, by some Ye Olde Tyme Alchemist.

The generally accepted use of those old cells was for
electroplating jewlery. There always *was* one born
every minute!

Jim

==================================================
please reply to:
JRR(zero) at yktvmv (dot) vnet (dot) ibm (dot) com
==================================================

Railroad rails
 

There is a belief that the Ark of the Covenant used primitive electric
cells to shock anyone touching it.The wrath of Jahweh.

Railroad rails
 

ED ROGERS wrote:

There is a belief that the Ark of the Covenant used primitive electric
cells to shock anyone touching it.The wrath of Jahweh.


Sounds reasonable, but...

Galvanic cells only produce about 1 volt. It'd take an awful lot of
them to shock someone.

Railroad rails
 

On Wed, 31 Mar 2004 22:43:09 -0500 (EST), (ED ROGERS) wrote:
There is a belief that the Ark of the Covenant used primitive electric
cells to shock anyone touching it.The wrath of Jahweh.

People believe all sorts of things, but is there any *evidence*?

It'd take a pretty hefty stack of cells to produce a shock to someone
just touching the ark, or an electric fence charger/ Tesla coil. Maybe
they had the latter too? Possible? Maybe. Unlikely? Damn straight!

Gary

Railroad rails
 

On Thu, 01 Apr 2004 00:04:24 -0500, the renowned Gary Coffman
wrote:

On Wed, 31 Mar 2004 22:43:09 -0500 (EST), (ED ROGERS) wrote:
There is a belief that the Ark of the Covenant used primitive electric
cells to shock anyone touching it.The wrath of Jahweh.

People believe all sorts of things, but is there any *evidence*?

It'd take a pretty hefty stack of cells to produce a shock to someone
just touching the ark, or an electric fence charger/ Tesla coil. Maybe
they had the latter too? Possible? Maybe. Unlikely? Damn straight!

Gary

These days you could just snap 25 or 50 9V batteries together, but I
suppose those folks had more time on their hands and could stack up
metal plates and put them in a jar with electrolyte. shrug

Best regards,
Spehro Pefhany
--
"it's the network..." "The Journey is the reward"
Info for manufacturers: http://www.trexon.com
Embedded software/hardware/analog Info for designers: http://www.speff.com

Railroad rails
 

Gary Coffman wrote:

On Wed, 31 Mar 2004 22:43:09 -0500 (EST), (ED ROGERS) wrote:

There is a belief that the Ark of the Covenant used primitive electric
cells to shock anyone touching it.The wrath of Jahweh.


People believe all sorts of things, but is there any *evidence*?

It'd take a pretty hefty stack of cells to produce a shock to someone
just touching the ark, or an electric fence charger/ Tesla coil. Maybe
they had the latter too? Possible? Maybe. Unlikely? Damn straight!

That's a dry country, they had rock floors, and wore a lot of wool.

Seems they should be very familiar with getting zapped.

Railroad rails
 

Spehro Pefhany wrote:
These days you could just snap 25 or 50 9V batteries together, but I
suppose those folks had more time on their hands and could stack up
metal plates and put them in a jar with electrolyte. shrug

"jars" Plural. More plates in one jar give current.

Railroad rails
 

Offbreed wrote:
Spehro Pefhany wrote:

These days you could just snap 25 or 50 9V batteries together, but I
suppose those folks had more time on their hands and could stack up
metal plates and put them in a jar with electrolyte. shrug


"jars" Plural. More plates in one jar give current.

Nope, depends on how they're connected - plates in series give more
voltage, in parallel, more current...

Railroad rails
 

On Thu, 01 Apr 2004 16:01:01 -0600, Bob Robinson wrote:
Offbreed wrote:
Spehro Pefhany wrote:

These days you could just snap 25 or 50 9V batteries together, but I
suppose those folks had more time on their hands and could stack up
metal plates and put them in a jar with electrolyte. shrug


"jars" Plural. More plates in one jar give current.

Nope, depends on how they're connected - plates in series give more
voltage, in parallel, more current...

Every anode in a common electrolyte bath is connected with every
cathode *through the electrolyte*. If you draw this out, you'll see that
if you tried to create muliple series connected cells in a single common
electrolyte, only the end plates would be active in the external circuit,
the others are effectively shorted out by being strapped together in
anode-cathode pairs in between.

That's why there are dividers to isolate the electrolyte between the
cells in a car battery, otherwise it would only output 2 volts instead
of 12 volts, and would get very hot because all the intermediate
anode-cathode pairs are dead shorted by straps.

Because there *are* dividers (think of them as creating individual jars),
the cells aren't in a common electrolyte, and each cell series adds
with the others because the straps are between the anode of one
cell and the cathode of a *different* cell. The battery is thus not
internally shorted, and gives us 12 volts.

Gary

Railroad rails
 

Bob Robinson wrote:

Offbreed wrote:

Spehro Pefhany wrote:

These days you could just snap 25 or 50 9V batteries together, but I
suppose those folks had more time on their hands and could stack up
metal plates and put them in a jar with electrolyte. shrug



"jars" Plural. More plates in one jar give current.

Nope, depends on how they're connected - plates in series give more
voltage, in parallel, more current...

In series in _one_ jar (one cell) and the ones in the middle are going
to short out. Try drawing it and seeing how the current flow will go.

Take a look at a car battery. Each cell is seperate from the others.

Railroad rails
 

On Thu, 01 Apr 2004 19:22:40 -0800, the renowned Offbreed
wrote:

Bob Robinson wrote:

Offbreed wrote:

Spehro Pefhany wrote:

These days you could just snap 25 or 50 9V batteries together, but I
suppose those folks had more time on their hands and could stack up
metal plates and put them in a jar with electrolyte. shrug



"jars" Plural. More plates in one jar give current.

Nope, depends on how they're connected - plates in series give more
voltage, in parallel, more current...

In series in _one_ jar (one cell) and the ones in the middle are going
to short out. Try drawing it and seeing how the current flow will go.

Speaking of railways, ever seen the batteries they use in railway
equipment? One glass container, lots of plates.

Best regards,
Spehro Pefhany
--
"it's the network..." "The Journey is the reward"
Info for manufacturers: http://www.trexon.com
Embedded software/hardware/analog Info for designers: http://www.speff.com

Railroad rails
 

Gary Coffman wrote:
On Thu, 01 Apr 2004 16:01:01 -0600, Bob Robinson wrote:

Offbreed wrote:

Spehro Pefhany wrote:


These days you could just snap 25 or 50 9V batteries together, but I
suppose those folks had more time on their hands and could stack up
metal plates and put them in a jar with electrolyte. shrug


"jars" Plural. More plates in one jar give current.


Nope, depends on how they're connected - plates in series give more
voltage, in parallel, more current...


Every anode in a common electrolyte bath is connected with every
cathode *through the electrolyte*. If you draw this out, you'll see that
if you tried to create muliple series connected cells in a single common
electrolyte, only the end plates would be active in the external circuit,
the others are effectively shorted out by being strapped together in
anode-cathode pairs in between.

That's why there are dividers to isolate the electrolyte between the
cells in a car battery, otherwise it would only output 2 volts instead
of 12 volts, and would get very hot because all the intermediate
anode-cathode pairs are dead shorted by straps.

Because there *are* dividers (think of them as creating individual jars),
the cells aren't in a common electrolyte, and each cell series adds
with the others because the straps are between the anode of one
cell and the cathode of a *different* cell. The battery is thus not
internally shorted, and gives us 12 volts.

Gary


You're right, of course. Rather than a "jar" I was thinking of the car
battery arrangement, with the electrolyte/plate sets separated into
cells. Sorry about that...

Bob

Railroad rails
 

Sounds like an 'Edison' battery. These are a Nickel-Iron battery, have
virtually unlimited life (50 years is common), and don't care much what
charge state they are in The drawback is inefficiency and bulk. They
typically do have clear glass cells, and look like weird big bottles.

One of our local hospitals uses them for their HUGE 'UPS' system ... a
whole ROOMFULL of them.

Dan Mitchell
==========

Spehro Pefhany wrote:

On Thu, 01 Apr 2004 19:22:40 -0800, the renowned Offbreed
wrote:

Bob Robinson wrote:

Offbreed wrote:

Spehro Pefhany wrote:

These days you could just snap 25 or 50 9V batteries together, but I
suppose those folks had more time on their hands and could stack up
metal plates and put them in a jar with electrolyte. shrug



"jars" Plural. More plates in one jar give current.

Nope, depends on how they're connected - plates in series give more
voltage, in parallel, more current...

In series in _one_ jar (one cell) and the ones in the middle are going
to short out. Try drawing it and seeing how the current flow will go.

Speaking of railways, ever seen the batteries they use in railway
equipment? One glass container, lots of plates.

Best regards,
Spehro Pefhany
--
"it's the network..." "The Journey is the reward"
Info for manufacturers: http://www.trexon.com
Embedded software/hardware/analog Info for designers: http://www.speff.com

Railroad rails
 

On Fri, 02 Apr 2004 10:28:13 -0500, "Daniel A. Mitchell" wrote:
Sounds like an 'Edison' battery. These are a Nickel-Iron battery, have
virtually unlimited life (50 years is common), and don't care much what
charge state they are in The drawback is inefficiency and bulk. They
typically do have clear glass cells, and look like weird big bottles.

One of our local hospitals uses them for their HUGE 'UPS' system ... a
whole ROOMFULL of them.

I use them for my UPS too. Got them from the phone company.

Gary

Railroad rails
 

In article ,
"Daniel A. Mitchell" wrote:

Sounds like an 'Edison' battery. These are a Nickel-Iron battery,

Hmmm... that's a new one on me. And sounds interesting, to say the least.

have
virtually unlimited life (50 years is common), and don't care much what
charge state they are in

The incredible-sounding life on them could make up for the drawbacks you
mention, it sounds like. Since your hospital uses them to power a UPS, I
presume they're rechargable?

The drawback is inefficiency and bulk. They
typically do have clear glass cells, and look like weird big bottles.

Time for me to go googling and see what I can come up with on the
beasts. I can't imagine them being all that difficult to make, if only
as a "dog catches car" concept. (As in "Hey! Wow, I caught it! Ummm...
Now that I've got it, what do I do with it?" :) )

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