Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/5/84; site zehntel.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxj!ihnp4!zehntel!jackh
From: jackh@zehntel.UUCP (jack hagerty)
Newsgroups: net.auto
Subject: Re: Batteries and concrete floors
Message-ID: <1652@zehntel.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 29-Oct-84 19:52:19 EST
Article-I.D.: zehntel.1652
Posted: Mon Oct 29 19:52:19 1984
Date-Received: Wed, 31-Oct-84 06:14:52 EST
References: <4043@decwrl.UUCP>
Organization: Zehntel Automation Systems Inc, Walnut Creek CA
Lines: 33


As promised last week, I looked up the R&T article where they tested this
myth. It was actually a two parter from "Technical Correspondence". I was
also surprised  at how far back it was.

In the October '76 issue's TC  a reader asked the same question that started
this discussion. The tech editor called a battery manufacturer who gave the
following explaination:

"In the early days of automobile batteries, circa the 1920s, battery cases
were made of wood. These would eventually saturate with the battery acid
allowing a current path if placed on a conducting surface. A concrete surface
allowed enough of a current trickle to completely discharge the battery in
a couple of days."

This explaination brought a hot letter from a reader who claimed that his
modern battery had discharged that quickly when placed on his garage floor.
To dertermine who was right, they (R&T) went to a local battery house and
conducted the following experiment:

They took two identicle batteries, charged them both, placed one on a
wooden bench and the other on the concrete floor next to it. Both the
state of charge and electrolyte density of all the cells of both batteries
was checked daily. After a week or two (I don't have the article with me)
the state of both batteries was identicle, within the accuracy of their
measuring instruments.

The second reader's letter and this experiment were written up in the 
January '77 issues's Technical Correspondence.

                               -- Jack Hagerty, Zehntel Inc.
                                  ...!ihnp4!zehntel!jackh