Had to remove 192 flooded cells from a Nortel site once, each one with 56 litres of acid. Wasnt exactly the nicest job we've ever done ... but sure did pay well ! Replaced them with good old VH57s
Well I'm 57 years old and my heavy lifting days are over. they hired a 300# (135kg) "kid" to help me out on the heavy jobs.
The first week on the job he laughed at me because I could no longer lift all those "very light" cells.
After I had him carry a dozen cells up a flight of stairs (and the old ones back down) he started laughing a bit less :)
I really rubbed it in a bit and told him that I was the one who installed them originally about 5 years before!
Heck my heavy lifting ended about 6 years ago when I had knee surgery
Ahh but once you get to a certain age you've learnt that using an electric / hydraulic battery lifter may not be so fast, but is way easier - and kinder on the back ! ;o) Although we still get the youngsters come in lifting VH57s at 127Kg each by hand.
I realised I was getting on when I started ripping out equipment that was state of the art 8-10 years ago when I first installed it, and replacing it with kit that was a fraction of the size :o(
I just get contractors to do it :o)
installed
it
Though the electronics has changed quite a bit in the 32 years I've been in the battery business... and there have even been some changes in the batteries too... Lead is lead...and it's heavy!
Good god, it must be the equivalent of being woken up by being kicked in the head!
No, the klaxon on the alarm clock has that effect. I'm out of bed and standing before I wake up!
I guess I just like my neighbours in the tenement to share in my lifestyle...
Owain
Unless those are of exotic construction, won't they have self-discharged within a couple years' time?
Reminds me of my (very much) younger days (I was still at school) and listening to AFN after Radio Luxembourg closed down - yes! I am going back a very long time!
(For the benefit of younger listeners: AFN was the American Forces Network, Europe.)
Closedown procedure varied from station to station and I can't remember now if it was Frankfurt, Munich or Stuttgart, (I think Frankfurt) but it went something like this:
"At the sound of the last tone, Central European Time will be One Hour .... AFN Frankfurt broadcasts on an assigned frequency of Eight Hundred, Seventy Two kilocycles per second, Three Hunded, Fourty-Four meters in the Medium Waveband with a power of One Hundred, Fifty Thousand Watts! ... AFN is now closing down and will return to the air at six hours this morning ... Ladies and Gentlemen: Our National Anthem!..."
... at which point, as a 14 year old listening under the bedcovers (as we all did, didn't we?) I had this mental picture of all these yanks jumping out of bed just after 1am, snapping smartly to attention and saluting (possibly to the flag propped up in the corner of the bedroom!)
Terry
You bet they will discharge... that's why I keep them on a hysteresis-loop charger (it's built into the UPS)
Irrespective of usage, the receiver must be active all the time waiting for a call - like leaving a radio switched on - with the volume turned down - it will eat the batteries. Plug in ones are better.
-- > > >-- > John
I would suspect the receiver battery lasts at least as long as the transmitter battery. Supposing one with a separate transformer plug in supply costs $10 more, it may come close to erasing any cost difference too over the life of the unit, though the plug in type would reduce # of batteries going into a landfill.
The transmitter is only consuming power for a few seconds at a time, when somebody presses the button. The receiver is on 24/7, and it has to power the bell/buzzer.
While that is true, that doesn't mean it necessarily consumes a lot of current. Take an LCD watch for example, it runs years from a tiny battery. How long do you think it would run from 2 x C cells? It is an irrelevant question because the cells will have self discharged faster than the watch would have drained them.
As a % of time the buzzer isn't running very often and the rest of the receiver may be using on a few uA. Since I have one that uses 2 x C cells and they have lasted a little over a year already, it is already clear it uses significantly less than 1mA on average.
I stand by my point - the bell unit is acting as a radio receiver all the time - ready to ring if it receives the correct input. It is bound to use a significant amount of power. I would only consider having a mains powered one - as many have a 13 amp plug through facility you are not even losing a socket. Battery quality is also an obvious factor.
Define "significant amount of power". Since the batteries in mine are plain old Duracell alkalines rated for 7800mAh,
... and it only goes lower every day it continues to run off same pair of cells. It may be that those Duracells can produce more than 7800mAh at such a slow drain rate, but not enough to make much of a difference in the calculations, we're still looking at a sub-1mA range considering those cells aren't dead yet and may not be any day soon.
I would agree that battery quality is an obvious factor but why would someone put low quality batteries in (anything?) except perhaps for those generic NiMH if the device didn't need run any longer than those can provide before another recharge cycle is acceptible - definitely not the case in this context with a door buzzer.
You must be fortunate with your choice of unit and batteries. People I know seem to often have theirs dead (Please knock sticker) and complain about battery consumption.
Good for you.
You can move them about the house with you if, say you were working in an upstairs room when expecting a parcel / take them into the conservatory / out to the barbecue. Also you can site them on top of tall cupboards where they are out of the way and inconspicuous without trailing wires.
Oddly the transmitter unit in my 4 year old Friedland unit has never had a new battery (presumably a button cell of some kind), whereas the sounder has had 3 sets of 2 "C" cells.
DG
But I'd expect a mains bell system to be heard throughout the house. The fact that you have to take a wireless one with you is just one more thing against it.
FFS, this is a DIY group. You don't need to put up with trailing cables. ;-)
So not cheap to run, then.
--
*Why can't women put on mascara with their mouth closed?
Dave Plowman dave@davenoise.co.uk London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.
... down the garden and into the next street if you choose the right sort :-)
Owain
... or for it, not everyone has either a tiny house or wants a bell system that loud, which tends to be that much louder in areas adjacent to it. If you have plaster walls or teenagers/others with loud stereos you may also find there's no one bell system that can be heard everywhere without waking the dead in the next zip code.
In short the ideal bell system is not as loud as possible, it's only loud enough to be heard reliably. One could wire up secondary chimes but considering the addt'l time and/or expense it may not not suit all needs either.
You don't "have" to take anything with you, that's like claiming it's a negative thing that a notebook is portable.
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