Arizona republican., 1917-10-28
PRACTICAL HINTS
 TOWARD CARE IF
 STORAGE BATTERY

The fact that the average motor car owner in America does not understand the construction of his storage battery and the care it needs. is responsible for millions of dollars loss every year through premature failure of this inn lurtant unit of the automobiles equip meut The average life of a storage battery in actual service is fifteen months With proper care this length of service can be raised to twenty months or more. Suppose we try to see why and how.
 There are several different kinds of storage batteries in use today, the familiar lead battery with liquid solu- ton, the same type with dry electrolyte and the Edison nickel-iron battery, be- ing those commonly encountered In motor car equipment the lead plate battery with liquid solution is the pre- vailins type.
 The automobile storage battery is an electro-chemicaI unit containing plates of a lead composition submerged in solution of sulphuric acid, known as electrolyte and having a specific gra- witty of l.30 at 70 degrees F. The plates in the battery are of two distinct kinds known as positive and negative The current leaves the battery by way of The positive and returns through the negative. The battery plates are made in the form of Srids. the spaces being filled with a special composition of lead. The positive plates have a filler consisting of peroxide of lead, reddish brown in color. The negative plates employ a spOngy composition of lead.
 These plates are separated by strips of specially treated wood, or sometimes of other materials. The clements. posi- tive and negative plates, are enclosed in jars of hard rubber which are filled or nearly so, with solution Of sul- phuric acid Each of these jars is known as cell and a battery may con sist of one, two, three four or more cells according to the power needed.
 The word storage" in connection with the electro chemical battery con Veys 8 false impression The storage battery does not store anything. The actual work of the battery consists in a chemical action between the acid solution and the active material con- taiued in the plates. Now this chemical action is always going on within the battery. even when it is not actually giving out current. But when the part is being called upon to deliver power, Ihe violence of the chemical action is enormously increased, electrical cur rent is generated and dispatched on it's way as directed by the driver of the car to start the motor, light the lights, or what not.
 The chemical action within the bat tery which produces the current also produces a substance known as lead sulphate. which is deposited on the Ir11 to ic ttYl1i stance and it's presence on the plates weakens the action of the battery be- cause it's formation has actually with drawn acid from the solution or elec- trolyte. Thus, if this condition reaches its ultimate stage, the plates would be thick with sulphate deposits and all the acid would be drawn from the cleo trolyte leaving plain water. In this case the battery would be able to pro duce no current whatever
 Now when electrical current from an outside source is sent into the battery it causes a reaction to take place, which is exactly the reverse of the former. as 1t breaks up the sulphate de- posit on the plates and drives it back into the liquid in the form of acid. When this operation has been com pleted and all the deposit has been re- moved the battery is ready to begin it's chemical action again and produce cleo tric current.
 It is obvious that the liquid with which the battery cells are filled, in the course of time, will suffer evaporation. This is doubly so because the chemical action of the battery produces a cer- tain amount of heat, which hastens losses due to inevitable evaporation. To make up for this and keep the liquid up to the proper level, distilled water must be added at regular intervals, once a week in warm weather and once in two weeks during the cold season. Filtered water may be bought at any drug store or garage or rain water, or water made by melting ice may be used. When the liquid has been re- duced by evaporation, obviously it's acid content is just the same and all that is necessary is to bring it up to