Any antique car enthusiasts here familiar with antique EVs?
How did they charge them. Did the cars have onboard chargers?
Did the batteries have to be removed for charging?
Was there a simple plug on/in car, or did one have to use some sort of clamps and hook charger cables directly to battery terminals?
Here is the manual for the Milburn:
No, but they would be plugged into a charging device which consisted of a big impedance-protected transformer followed by some Tungar bulbs for rectification. The weight of the charging transformer made it something you didn't want to be carrying around all the time if you could help it.
Today in the modern switching supply era it would all fit into a small box.
There was a standard plug, but I recall there was some sort of issue where you couldn't use the same charger for the Detroit Electric that you did with the Milburn. That may be a voltage or a connector issue.
Incidentally, check out the description of the Sangamo integrating current-time meter in the manual! Really slick!
--scott
All of the above. It really depended on who made the vehicle and when it was made. The charging system also depended on where you lived and what power was available to you.
Look back at the early batteries and you will discover that what we consider re-charging today was an entirely different thing then. When you bought many of those batteries you bought them as individual cells, Then you took them home and "charged" them by adding the water/acid mix to start them generating. A re-charge was just that, you emptied them out, cleaned the cell and the added more acid to the mix and filled them back up.
My thanks to both Steve and Scott. Answers like this make the group worthwhile. In among all the spam and stuff Usenet is still essential!
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