By Xzen Dor
Converting a vehicle (car/truck) from gas power to electric power requires that three primary things be considered if you're to have an electric vehicle that provides good performance in speed and range as compared to an gas powered vehicle of similar weight and size.
1) The vehicles power source must be able to move the weight mass of the vehicle at speed for the desired range
2) The vehicles electric Drive Motor must be powerful enough to deliver the the energy to the drive drain of the vehicle for the speed and desired drive range for both city and highway driving.
3) The batteries that form your power source must be of the right type for maximum performance and maximum operational life.
Gas and diesel powered vehicles need a battery to start the vehicle engine and this battery is designed to supply high currents for short periods of time. After the engine starts the battery is immediately recharged by the alternator.
For an electric vehicle the battery must provide sustained long term high currents for the duration of the vehicles travel destination. There is no recharging of the vehicles battery until the vehicle is turned off and recharged with a charger (unless the electric vehicle uses an AC Motor and a Regenerative Circuit to recharge the batteries during braking).
Since a standard car/truck battery is designed for Short Term - High Current Output the materials within the battery will begin to break down fairly rapidly if this standard battery were used to power an electric vehicle through a process known as Positive Grid Corrosion. When current is transferred to the load (DC Motor), the positive plate of the battery is eaten away over time. How fast this plate deteriorates is based on the thickness of the positive plate. As a result a standard car battery would be rendered useless in just a few months. To circumvent this short coming specially designed batteries called deep cycle batteries have been designed specifically for electric vehicles.
A Deep Cycle battery differs from a standard car battery in the plate design. Unlike regular car batteries whose lead plates are made up of many thin like lead sponge plates (which generate high amperage or current for short periods of time). The plates of a Deep Cycle battery are solid and much thicker. While standard car batteries have a plate thickness of 0.04", a Deep Cycle battery can have a plate thickness exceeding 0.25". This difference in design allows the battery to output a sustained high output current (note: the output current is lower than that of a standard car battery) without premature battery failure; which for a standard car battery would be several months.
There are three types of Deep Cycle batteries available for use with electric vehicles.
These Deep Cycle battery types are:
1)Flooded
2)Gelled Electrolyte
3)Absorbed Glass Mat or AGM
Here is a brief explanation of each battery type:
Flooded Deep Cycle batteries share many of the characteristics of standard car batteries except for the thickness of lead plates which make up the battery, which does not make quite suitable for electric vehicle use - at least not for the top speed and range required in replacing a gas powered vehicle.
Gelled Electrolyte Deep Cycle batteries are a combined Acid/Silica mix which forms a gelatin matrix. The advantages of this type of battery good high temperature tolerance, minimal battery damage with partial recharging, spill proof electrolyte even if the battery is broken, hermetically sealed enclosure do not vent gas under normal use. Some disadvantages are poor high voltage tolerance, battery must be charged at slower rate to prevent excess gas from damaging the battery cells, battery can not be fast charged with a standard automotive charger.
Absorbed Glass Mat batteries use a Boron-Silicate Glass Mat that is placed in between the lead plates of the battery, this makes the electrolyte spill proof even if the battery case is broken. AGM batteries also exhibits many of the advantages of the Gel Deep Cycle battery including the ability to withstand high voltage charging, they are resistant to freezing damage, they use a gas phase transfer process to recombine oxygen & hydrogen inside the battery which reduces water loss to under 1%. AGM batteries have extremely low internal resistance, practically no heating under load or when charging, and no charge/discharge current limits (for most AGM batteries).
Deep Cycle batteries are rated in a measure of unit called Amp-Hours or AH this is a measure of the output current per hour. Therefore if a battery is rated at 10-AH it will supply 10A over 1HR or 1A over 10Hrs.
The standard Amp-Hour rating used for Deep Cycle batteries is the 20 Hour Rate, and is based on discharging a 12V battery down to 10.5V over 20 Hours and measuring the actual Amp-Hours the battery supplies.
Though all three types of batteries Flooded, Gelled Electrolyte and Absorbed Glass Mat can be used for electric vehicles, Gelled Electrolyte and Absorbed Glass Mat offer the best performance and longest battery life. Gelled Electrolyte is much cheaper than Absorbed Glass Mat since AGM batteries carry a premium of up to 3x the cost of standard Deep Cycle Batteries.
Download a Free Special Report on Electric Vehicle Conversions and learn how to get started with a gas to electric vehicle conversion, including finding a vehicle and obtaining free batteries and motors.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Xzen_Dor