[amsat-bb] Batteries not included!

["Luc Leblanc (VE2DWE)" <luclebla@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Without disturbing command team recovery efforts, i recollect some of my memories about batteries. If you go 
on my web pages www.qsl.net/ve2dwe you will see that i'm living litterally on top of batteries in my shack 
(acid and gel). 

One of my defunct uncle was playing with batteries for his whole life and my batteries fascination come from 
this era probably.

Here is some excerpt from my readings.

  

How do batteries fail?

Batteries generally fail in one of two ways.
The most likely is that the battery will show very low capacity when cycled due to one cell that has low 
voltage. The next thing is most likely that the battery will show progressively lower capacity each time it 
is cycled.  In the first case, the bad cell can be detected by using a voltmeter and sharp probes
to measure the voltage of the individual cells of the battery. Even with a battery that has been discharged, 
one of the cells will usually show a voltage lower that the others. In the second case, the battery should be 
cycled an additional time. If the capacity then shows less than 80 percent of the marked capacity, it should 
be discarded and not used.

Can a battery with one bad cell be repaired?

Yes. If the battery is less than about a year old, the failed cell can be replaced with another of the same 
brand and capacity, because the failure was most likely caused by a manufacturing defect.
When making the replacement, care must be taken not to damage any of the cells by overheating during
soldering and to restore the integrity of the electrical insulation. If the battery is older than a year it 
may have failed due to normal deterioration, and other cells may soon follow.
You will talk to people who replace cells in older batteries, but our opinion,
it is like putting one new tire on a car with three bald tires, not a good risk for racing.

Now what about this idea  "At the moment the main and aux.  batteries have been tied together and should be 
charging." Is it better to isolate the failing battery or tying them with a good one?

Again i don't expect command team member to answer that now, but in the mean time any of your comments can be 
valuable for the general audience.

My car mercury sable with turbo motor 24 valves is electonicaly set to cut off over 180KM speed to avoid 
motor damages. LEILA with his AGC treshold levels was design to avoid too much power drainage from the 
batteries ultimatly. Different settings on U and L makes LEILA working differently but they should always 
protect batteries (and systems) from excessive usage to effectively protecting AO-40 systems.

Starting with the radar pulse and all the various RF signals coming from earth AO-40 was condemned to 
experience numerous high power ERP signals. It an illusion to believed in self control in our world.

LEILA was a good substitute for our:  lack of self control, inexperience, mistakes and so on... BUT probably 
not enough. In the recent culprits hunt we should consider it was not the first episode of and i quote "Due 
to a combination of prolonged extremely heavy transponder use and a high solar angle" There was some field 
days where near 24 hour of extremely heavy transponder usage was also noted.

The human factor is well documented and probably LEILA was establish to counter act it? It was not perfect 
needing some adjustments on L band could be!  But one fact remain if this L band was susceptible to provoque 
a failure of this magnitude should we have to shut it down in the first place?

A race car motor usually broke under heavy demand. Formula 1 car motor are built in a way to sustain 
prolonged extremely heavy usage...and they broke!.

We should be careful when we are looking for culprits. YES there was well documented folks who regularly, 
consistently used L band overtopping MB. They can be of any countries and the lack of self policing can be 
debated later. For now technically and not emotionnaly speaking we have a DEAD CELL BATTERIES problem. As 
another of my sayng says "An extremely good looking women cannot give what she don't have" batteries 
included.

I know some of you are asking for payers but as the guy in the ocean facing drowning yel " God help me" i 
answer back yes but SWIM.

Command team is swimming right now.



Luc Leblanc VE2DWE
Coordonnateur AMSAT pour le Québec
Quebec AMSAT coordinator
AMSAT MEMBER (33583)
Sites web sites: www.qsl.net/ve2dwe
                          www.sorel-tracy.qc.ca/~luclebla/

Echolink node 115340 VE2DWE-L
Echolink node 101810 VE2DWE

P.O. Box 341
Sorel-Tracy  QC.
Canada
J3P 5T6

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