Solar panel efficency

They probably have a "do not lick" label for litigious US tourists.

Uh... RoHs is a euro thing.

The US banned Cadmium in the industry years ago. More proof that the whole rohs thing was a huge waste of money for the entire world. A hit this industry did not need.

And there are exemptions, even for Cadmium, Mercury, and Lead. They are just not anywhere where contact is an imminent worry.

Well, I do not mourn NiCd batteries. I'll be happy when lead acid goes the same way.

NiCd has its place. NiMH certainly hasn't held up its promise.

Lead-Acid (and SLA) has its place too. No one has come up with a replacement for either one.

Lead acid batteries do not harm the environment.

Metallic form lead does not get into the water table, and it get recycled anyway. COMPOUNDS of lead and mercury, etc. harm the environment, not the metallic form.

Does ROHS allow exemptions where contact is difficult?

There was/is concern over whether LEDs and microwave fets are allowed, what with the arsenic in GaAs.

(I just hate those google links)

John

Lead-acid batteries are full of lead compounds. That's how they work.

John

IMHO someone should be seriously looking at Aluminium, as will as Lithium. There's plenty of the former available, and always will be. Not quite as good in theory, but ultimately perhaps a lot cheaper.

That is just silly. It is a crystal and is tightly bound.

If you read the wording of the ROHS rules, that doesn't matter. It also doesn't matter how little GaAs is in a product.

John

that the

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cement

How about Li-ion? is that bad or just too expensive? They don't seem to have much self discharge, and absorb almost all the energy used to charge them.

-Bill

Li-ion, or Li Polymer, are rather expensive. I suspect that they will become even more expensive if they are widely adopted in electric cars since sources of cheap Li are very finite. That's one reason I'de like to see some progress with (say) Aluminium-Air batteries.

or recharchables

Too expensive and fragile for a lot of applications. They require constant monitoring just to keep them from catching fire. Sometimes it even works.

All battery technologies have their weak points. Overlap is needed so it's unlikely that any are going away, barring government intervention.

It is hard to find other types with as low internal resistance. This is critical in applications using high peak current during short periods at a time, without too much voltage drop.

An accumulator with several times the nominal capacity compared to the NiCd is useless, if it can not supply an output voltage higher than the drop out voltage of the device during peak demand.

Is that a problem ?

Yes. Peoples are animals. They follow whoever attracts them with bright toys.

VLV

Only if you're American, it seems

Wanna bet?

Put up a bet in Vegas, I'll buy in against it. You'll lose.

I do not own a cell phone, a car, or an iPUD. No tattoos and no piercings, no bent perceptions.

Humans are typically clic-edy-doo-da, follow-the-flock idiots. And that goes for damned near every last goddamned one of you.

I am atypical. I too am damned. One of my differences is that I know that fact.

Where have all the statesmen gone?