[AT] Charging batteries

Tue Mar 12 07:38:22 PDT 2019

 I had one of those service station chargers. It used seleniums.  Would charge about 8, 6 volt batteries. Had a indicator lamp for each battery circuit. 

GaryRenton, WA

-----Original Message-----
From: Stephen Offiler <soffiler at gmail.com>
To: Antique Tractor Email Discussion Group <at at lists.antique-tractor.com>
Sent: Tue, Mar 12, 2019 6:56 am
Subject: Re: [AT] Charging batteries

Thanks Ken.  A quick Google search brings up at least one resource that claims the selenium rectifier was in common use by the 1930's, so that could definitely be the answer.
SO
On Tue, Mar 12, 2019 at 9:16 AM Ken Knierim <ken.knierim at gmail.com> wrote:

Steve, that one could have had several selenium rectifiers across a common transformer so it could charge multiple batteries. They had a lot of internal resistance which would help balance the voltage and current in these types of applications. Just a thought... I remember seeing a lot of those in battery chargers but I don't know when they started using those types of rectifiers. 
Ken in AZ
On Tue, Mar 12, 2019 at 4:42 AM Stephen Offiler <soffiler at gmail.com> wrote:

Hi farmer:   Interesting comments on the history of battery charging.  Just thinking out loud here (haven't tried to tap the vast resources of the Internet) it seems this must somehow parallel the history of the rectifier.  Seems reasonable to assume that prior to the semiconductor, rectifiers weren't very efficient (vacuum tubes).  Rotating, commutator-equipped machines (aka generators) were probably needed to produce DC efficiently.   Wondering how that 12-battery charger from the 1930's worked; guessing it had an AC electric motor spinning a sizable generator.
Steve O.
On Mon, Mar 11, 2019 at 11:35 PM Indiana Robinson <robinson46176 at gmail.com> wrote:

As someone who grew up during the late 1940''s and early 1950's and as  kid I was watching life very closely and asking a million questions. My father had many failings and we didn't always get along well but I have to  give him credit for teaching me many skills and always being ready to answer questions and trying to teach me anything he was able to.The 1946 Allis Chalmers C that I own that was bought new by an extremely close family friend of three generations has almost since new been poor at keeping the battery charged. It was almost allways used for a lot of short running jobs with a lot of starts but short run times. When charging it usually only threw a couple of amps and at times it just wasn't in the mood to charge at all. His son had a "lot" of electrical training while in the army during WW-II and he cursed it constantly. 
Now this part may be new for a lot of the younger folks but in about the first half of the last century reasonably priced home battery chargers were mostly just not there. For many years it was very common for folks to remove the battery from their car or tractor and take it to a service station and pay to have it charged. I can well recall going into service stations in the early 1950's and seeing shelves sitting full of batteries being charged. 
My father had a very good friend in the late 1930's who had a service station in a small community about 8 miles from here. When war was declared after Pearl Harbor in December 1941 and the country went into war production in early 1942 his friend shut down the service station and both of them started working 12 hour shifts 7 days a week at Allison's in Indy. I don't know what his friend did but my father was testing aircraft engines. Since he was making very good money he bought a lot of the tools and equipment out of the service station from his friend. One of those items was a large battery charger capable of charging 12 batteries at a time.On another tractor note, that was the same time that he bought his new 1941 9N and a batch of farm equipment.Back to the Allis C, the family friend kept the C in a tiny shed and his son ran an electric line out to it. Then he built a 6 volt charger from a junk yard auto generator, a matching voltage regulator and a smallish electric motor to drive the generator. I recall being really impressed as a kid the first time I saw it running. Then again in those days I was impressed by about anything with moving parts that made noise.  :-)That Allis still has major rounds of depression when It doesn't want to charge... We replaced the generator with a rebuilt one from TSC and replaced the cut-out with a conversion kit that used a conventional voltage regulator and did away with the original light / charge rate switch and all wiring replaced. I can assure you that I have checked the grounds, checked the grounds, checked the grounds until I am blue in the face but it still lacks reliability. I think that I will break with my normal approach and convert it to 12 volts and a smallish alternator. I'll just keep all of the original stuff in a box on a shelf up in the loft. Over the years I have usually just used the crank to start it if it was weak but the family friend was elderly, very slightly built and in poor health and that tractor does crank kind if hard. He just couldn't crank start it.

.

-- 
-- 

Francis Robinson
aka "farmer"
Central Indiana USA
robinson46176 at gmail.com

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