Here are three responses to Frank Foseilles' questions on batteries additives! Good Work Folks! Information sharing helps us all. I will keep this brief & discouraging. Back in the early twenties my dad made batteries for the then new automobile. His was a one man operation as were many in those days. I learned the processes from him, although I never applied them. He kept the tools, which I still have. With that background let me issue forth. First, you are working with metallic lead, red lead, white lead, and sulphuric acid. Not the safest bunch of materials. Second, most, not all but most, of today's batteries are not worth trying to recondition. They are made of the minimum amount of materials and when they are exhausted they are all done. The manufacturers are conserving valuable resources because most people would just discard them regardless. If you have the opportunity, compare a pre-WW-2 six volt battery with one of today's twelve volt - they are roughly the same size but the six volt weighs twice the twelve volt. Third, if your cells are assembled into a battery with lead straps you will have to cut the straps in order to lift the cell from the case, remove the partial strap from the post, etc. You now need molds to cast new posts and straps etc. If the cells are not connected with lead straps you can lift each cell out without damaging anything. The greatest problem is sludge in the bottom of the cell which shorts the plates. This is a simple matter of discarding the acid (careful this is a controlled substance), washing the case, returning the unit, adding new acid and you are back in business. The next most frequent problem is damaged separators. This is easily repaired if you can get new separators. We used thin cedar sheets. Just slide the old separators out and slid new ones in. The next most frequent problem is warped plates. The simplest solution is to remove the warped plates and use the battery with fewer plates; there is a limit, of course. Beyond this you will need a mold to cast the grid, litharge paste to fill the grid, etc., etc. A bit much. There is an excellent book which discusses this in detail with fine illustrations. Title- "The Automobile Storage Battery - Its Care and Repair" by O.A. Witte, Publisher- The American Bureau of Engineering, Inc., Chicago 1919. As you can see it was published almost 70 years ago. I am not trying to be funny - look in every used book store you come across (Which every AE person should be doing anyway). Dad would have nothing to do with additives. In the early days a couple of his customers did add alcohol in the winter to keep the battery from freezing. Dad had to teach as well as work. We enjoy your paper and although we are not now using alternative energy we experimented alot during the early seventies, had some success, some failures, some laughs, some cries. Although discouraging, I hope this letter contributes something to someone. Sincerely, Ray Ferriss, Oriskany Falls, NY 13425 BATTERY ADDITIVES are a RIP-OFF. They give the battery a chemical jolt for 5-7 days and then it's really dead. Dropping it on the ground from 1 ft. a couple of times and charging it works just as well. Love, Ogden Lafaye, New Orleans, LA. And last but not least.... I have an old book book by George M. Hopkins, "Experimental Science". It contains construction plans for making Plante lead acid batteries. Also of interest is a thermoelectric battery as well as other items. This book is now being offered by Lindsay Publications, Inc., POB 12, Bradley, IL 60915-0012, (815) 468-3668. Yours, L.E. Spicer, Hydrogen Wind, Inc., RR#2 Box 262, Lineville, IA 50147. Where can we purchase "extra-capacity" nickel-Cadmium cells D, C, and AA, as shown in HP#4, pg. 15, Fig. 2 "Nickel-Cadmium Batteries". Father Virgil Dusbabek O.C.S.O. Huntsville, UT. Both Allied Electronics (800-433-5700) and Digi-Key (800-344-4539) sell the extra-capacity nicads. We've had personal experience with the cells made by Panasonic and they are first rate. How do you hook up two batteries (12 volt) to one 45 watt PV panel? Can you connect the 2 positives together and the 2 negatives together & charge & discharge continuously? Rosemary Arriye, Breckenridge, CO. Yes, this is called a "parallel" connection and electrically makes both batteries into one larger battery. The voltage stays the same (12 VDC) and the capacity of the combined batteries is the sum of their capacities. I've just received HP#4. What alot of good information in a small space! Congratulations! One question: In the "Things That Work" article on HP#4, a "deglitch capacitor" was mentioned as a means of reducing radio frequency interference from fluorescent lights. Could we have more information on this? Our AM reception is heavily impacted by our fluorescent lights. Thank You Very Much, Steve Benser, Waldron, WA. Use a .01µf or a .001µf disk ceramic capacitor with a 25 VDC rating or greater. Solder this capacitor across the power leads, i.e. use the capacitor make a connection between the positive and negative wires feeding the fluorescent light. Do this as close a possible to the light. The interference you are experiencing is the radio frequency (RF) component of the micro inverter in the fluorescent lamp. The wires that supply the power to the lamp act as a broadcasting antenna for the lamp's RF noise. The deglitch capacitor short out the RF noise at the light and reduces the interference. Radio Shack sells such capacitors. Just read January's HP and have Feb. and March next in line, Thank You so much!! This mag. is much needed & I hope your time & energy is well rewarded! The whole mag. is informative & well written. Every article a favorite! We've used AE since '84 (so do our four neighbors). Three of us will be putting in a deep well soon (500-600 ft.). Do you know of any DC submersible pumps or other alternatives like pump jacks (sucker rod systems) & costs? Peter Miceli, Taos, NM. Well, with 500+ feet depth you are limited to a jack type pump. The people to talk to are at SolarJack, 102 W.8th St., Safford, AZ 85546, or telephone: 602-428-1092. They make high quality jack pumps that work at this depth and are powered by PVs. Will coaxial cables pick up DC voltage when running next to DC cables. Tommy Tomlinson, Newcastle, CO. No, DC wiring will not inductively or capacitively couple with coaxial cable. However, coaxial cable will couple with ac wiring, especially if the ac wiring is inverter supplied. So, keep your coaxial cable away from your ac wiring or you'll get "hum" on your radios. We have two generators, 6 deep cycle batteries, a Trace inverter, & our house is totally wired for both ac & DC. Our main problem is we don't fully understand how anything in our system really works & how to best care for it. Any "simple to understand" information is desperately needed. Especially about how to charge our batteries correctly. We have a constant "low battery reading". Everything in our system is new. Our Trace inverter has the standby charger set at 14.3. We run our generator twice a day. Once in A.M., again at supper time... for doing laundry & dishes since our pump is still separate we need to for major water demand. We are totally perplexed as to why our battery readings are at a constant low. Perhaps you could attempt to answer this in "Questions & Answers". Also we have found out that NO banks in New York will carry a mortgage on our home because of no conventional power. We need to know if there are any "out of state" banks that will carry a mortgage on this type of house. Thank you again & again for your magazine & help. It is SO needed. Susan Mistico, Camden, NY. It sounds like your batteries are never getting properly refilled. The Trace is user programmable and you must set the inverter's charger to meet your particular needs. Set the voltage limit on the Trace's charger higher to 15.3 VDC. This will more totally refill your batteries during your short recharging periods. You didn't mention your charge amperage setting or your battery's Ampere-hour capacity. The Trace is also programmable for charge current. In most cases, we set this to maximum current unless the battery is too small to handle the current. For short periods of time (less than 3 hours), charge rates in the C/5 to C/8 range are acceptable to lead acid batteries in good condition. Try these settings on your inverter's battery charger and see if they help. As to financing, I've no specific info for you. How about it readers? Anyone know of a financial institution that is smart enough to finance real estate powered by renewable energy sources? Here are two questions without answers. How about it, Readers? For the past 12 years we have been using a Dunlite 120 volt wind generator. Unfortunately, it was severely damaged in a storm. Dunlite no longer makes wind machines and has no parts, so we are stuck. Do you know any source of parts for a Dunlite, 1976 model?? Frank W. Hansen, Box 2127, Tofte, MN 55615. 1. Super! Keep it up! 2. I loved my demand hot water heater until it died last month. Can you help me find another? Instant hot water & gobs of it for a small cost of propane. It worked 9 years before it blew a fitting. I can't find another fitting. It was a Thorn. Mrs. Irene Shadrick, Banning, CA.