Hey guys, I want to bug you's again. Instead of trying to ask about different things in one of my other topics, I wanted to start a new one.
I went to the local dump today, and one of the first things I spotted was Three, not just one, booster packs. You know, the ones you can charge up and boost a car with, and some of them have inverters built into them so you can run small appliances.
Well I snapped all three of them up, thinking that at the very least, the lead acid batteries inside them would be OODLES of help towards making a full scale wind generator (I plan to build one or two full size wind generators with car alternators, whenever the good weather comes and I can work outside).
Well, I got them home and cracked them all open. Turns out that only one battery is good to me (pictures below). The two identical units have 350 watt inverters built into them (I've removed one so far), but the batteries were bulging and the sides were split open, although not leaking, which was good, less mess to clean up.
The third booster pack I opened appeared to have been already attempted at being opened. 4 of the 6 screws had been drilled out (which is beyond me as far as why they would do it? They were only phillips screws), but maybe they weren't successful? It had a couple wounds of electrical tape around it to hold it together.
Needless to say, whatever cutting tool they used, cut into the battery itself (they cut too far in, dumbasses...), and so my main question here is, is the battery safe to charge, and use? I took some macro's of the damage and some of the cut marks seemed to have gone far enough in to cut into what appears to be a white plastic lining inside, as the white crud on the sides of the battery feels more like burnt on plastic from a cutting disc than it does acid that oozed out and dried up, so the damage doesn't appear to be that bad. What's the worst that could happen anyways? Also, the battery has about almost 8v left in it, and another question is, is that too low for a 12v battery? Like has it been discharged too far?
Also, aside from the battery. I found this plate with a transformer, giant capacitor, and a pcb that looks like it was some kind of voltage converter board (I would take a picture but I've since cut a few things off of it and I won't even bother now)
The transformer puts out 25v and you can see in the pictures what the capacitor is rated for (I would like to know what I can use this capacitor for, or if I should save it and wait till I can make a bank of capacitors for a tesla coil project or something)
What I can't figure out, is what is this square device I found that was plugged into one of the output leads of the transformer? It only had two leads coming off of it, one is marked + and one -, the other two terminals don't have marking on it. No model numbers or anything. Does anyone know what this is?
Also, last in my pictures is one of the inverter boards I pulled out of one of the power-packs. I cut the second outlet off and wrapped the first one in tape just to make sure I dont' shock the hell out of myself. I have my truck battery sitting inside over the winter, and with a good 12.71v, I thought it would be the perfect battery to try the inverter on.
I brushed the wires onto the top terminals of the battery and although I could hear a bit of sparking, I saw nothing and the indicator light on the power switch didn't light. The volt meter also showed nothing from the 120v outlet. So I tried shoving the wires into the bolt sockets that the truck's wires bolt into, and I quite literally startled myself as it emitted a really loud BEEEEEEEEEEP, I nearly jumped through the roof. The indicator light turns on when I flick the switch to I and I can hear the transformer making a little buzzing sound. However, when I measured the AC voltage from the outlet, I didn't write down the voltage, but it was around 3v? Not even quite that much.
I'm not sure if the inverter is screwed or if it has something to do with the switching nature of power inverters causing my multi-meter to not read it right? One other thing I will note is that I had to cut the power switch leads to remove it from the case, then re-solder the switch. The switch has 2 black wires and one red, I tried my best to make sure that each black wire went to the terminal on the switch it came from, and I assume if I didn't hook the switch up right, it wouldn't have lighted up or anything right?? I don't want to try plugging something into it for fear that it will blow up in my face, at least not until I know it's functioning like it should be, however I doubt these power packs were throwing out for failure of the inverter...
*On the side note*
I apologize for these (sometimes) rediculously long posts or just mundane questions. However, I like to be thoughrough with my questions so that there are very little questions asked, about my question, in the first place. As it seems to waste a lot of time asking for details about this or that problem, when you could just throughly explain it all in one go. This is what I try to do, so there are no blank spaces for you guys to try and "assume" where you don't know the proper information.
Secondly, I've really appreciated the help, and sometimes just the helpful and creative ideas I hear from others, makes me feel good, like there's actually some people on here that know what they're doing and I can trust their answers (Nacho, kiteman, caitlyn's dad, 1010100100, all of you regulars, have been great help to me)
*End of girlish requiem*