RENTAL BATTERIES

Rental batteries are those which are put on a customer's car while his own is being repaired or recharged. They are usually rebuilt batteries turned in when a new battery is bought. They may also be made of the good parts of batteries which are junked. By carefully saving good parts, such as plates, jars, covers, and cases, a stock of parts will gradually be acquired from which rental batteries may be made. Rental batteries may also be bought from the battery manufacturers.

A supply of rental batteries should, of course, be kept ready to go out at any time. The number of such batteries depends upon the size of the business. 25 batteries for each 1000 cars in the territory served is a good average. Do not have too many rental batteries of the same type. Many of them will be idle most of the time and thus will not bring in any money. Rentals should be made to fit those makes of cars of which there are the greatest number in the territory served by the repair shop. Sufficient parts should be kept on hand to make up other rentals on short notice.

Terminals for Rental Batteries

There are several combination terminals on the market which allow rental batteries equipped with them to be easily connected to several of the various types of cable terminals that are in use. Yet it is a universal experience for the average service station always to have calls for rental batteries with just the type of terminals which are not on hand. When the station has many batteries with the clamp type straight posts the call always seems to be for the taper plug type and vice versa.

[Fig. 152 Best type of connection to be used whenever possible]

Most of us will agree that the clamp type post terminal is the cause of much trouble. It is almost impossible to prevent corrosion at the positive post and many a car owner has found that this has been his trouble when his lights burn all right but the battery seemingly does not have power enough to turn over the engine and yet every cell tests 1.280. Service Station men should not sc.r.a.pe and clean up a corroded clamp type terminal and put it back on again, but should cut it off and put on either a taper plug or, preferably, a lead-plated copper terminal lug. Of course either of these terminal connections necessitates changing the battery terminals to correspond.

For rental batteries it will be found that short cable terminals with lead-plated copper lugs at the end will enable a battery man to connect most any type of cable terminal on any car. It is true that such connections must be taped up, but the prompt service rendered more than offsets a little tape. Figures 152 to 158 ill.u.s.trate how these connections can be made to the taper plug and clamp types which are used on most cars.

[Fig. 153 Method of connecting rental battery with cable terminals to car with taper plug]

[Fig. 154 Another method of connecting copper terminal lug to clamp terminal on car]

[Fig. 155 Method of connecting rental batteries with cable terminals to cars with clamp type terminals]

Fig. 155. Showing method of connecting rental batteries with cable terminals, to cars with clamp type terminals. In Fig. 155 the cable insulation is stripped for a s.p.a.ce of an inch and the strands are equally divided with an awl. A bolt is pa.s.sed through the opening and a washer and nut complete the connection.

[Fig. 156 and Fig. 157 Two methods of connecting a clamp type terminal to taper plug terminals]

Two methods of connecting a clamp type terminal to taper plug terminals. In Fig. 156 a taper plug is inserted and screwed tight. The projecting part of the plug has been turned down to fit the clamp type terminal which is clamped to it. In Fig. 157 a bolt is pa.s.sed through and the clamp type terminal tightened to the plug type terminal with a washer and nut.

[Fig. 158 Lead plated copper terminal lug]

Fig. 158 shows a simple means of putting on a lead-plated copper terminal lug without solder. These lugs should be soldered on whenever possible, but it is often a difficult job to put one on in the confined s.p.a.ce of some battery compartments. In such places, a quick and lasting job can be made with a band vise and a short piece of round iron. This latter is laid across the lug and the vise screwed up, making a crimp across the lug which firmly grips down upon the bared cable strands that have been inserted into the lug.

New batteries sold to replace other batteries should be installed with cable connections, as ill.u.s.trated in Figure 152. This method of connecting a battery is superior to any other method and will never cause trouble. It will usually be found that the old taper plugs or clamp terminals that have been in use have started to corrode and that a new battery works increasingly at a disadvantage from the day it is installed until the corrosion becomes so great that the car cannot be started and then the customer kicks about his new battery. The best connection possible will pay handsome dividends to all concerned, in the end.

Marking Rental Batteries. Rental batteries should be marked in a mariner which enables them to be recognized quickly. Painting the cases a red color is a good way. The service station's name should appear somewhere on the battery. A good plan is to have a lead tag, which is attached to the handle at the negative end of the battery, or is tacked to the case. The name may also be painted on the case. Each battery should be given a number which should preferably be painted in large white figures on the end or side of each case. The number may also be stamped on a lead tag tied to the handle at the negative end.

A service station which sells a certain make of battery should not use cases of some other make if the name of the other make appears on the case. Such names may give a wrong impression to the customer, which will not be fair either to the service station or to the manufacturer whose name appears on the case. If the service station sells, another make of battery, the customer may get the impression that the service station man does not have enough confidence in the make which he sells, and must use some other make for his rentals. If the rental battery does not give good service, the customer will get the impression that the manufacturer whose name appears on the case does not turn out good batteries, when as a matter of fact, the plates, covers, jars, and other parts used in the rental battery may not have been made by this manufacturer. Some battery men would, perhaps, consider the failure of a rental battery as an opportunity to "knock"

the manufacturer whose name appears on the case. Such an action may have the desired effect on a very few customers, but the great majority of men have no use for any one who "knocks" a compet.i.tor's products.

Keeping a Record of Rental Batteries. A careful record should be kept of all rental batteries. The more carefully such a record is kept, the less confusion there will be in knowing just where every rental battery is. A special rack for rental batteries, such as those shown in Figures 88 and 89 should be provided, and all rental batteries which are in the shop should be kept there, except when they are on charge or are being overhauled. Have them fully charged and ready to go out immediately, without keeping a customer waiting around, when he is in a hurry to go somewhere else.

General Rental Policy. No service station should make a practice of installing rental batteries on any car unless the owner leaves his own battery to be repaired or recharged. The purpose of having a stock of rental batteries is to enable customers to have the use of their cars while their own batteries are being repaired by the battery man who furnishes the rental battery and not to furnish batteries to car owners who may be taking their batteries to some other station to be repaired. It is, of course, a good thing to be generous and accommodating, but every battery repairman should think of his own business first, before he helps build up the business of a compet.i.tor.

The customer must have some inducement to bring in your rental battery and get his own. A rental charge of 25 cents-per day serves as a reminder to most customers. However, some customers are forgetful and the battery man must telephone or write to any owner who fails to call for his battery. If, due to failure to keep after the owner, a rental battery is out for several weeks, there is likely to be an argument when the rental bill is presented to the owner. If the delay in calling in a rental battery is due to failure to repair the customer's battery, the rental charge should be reduced.

A rental battery should not be put in place of a battery which is almost ready for the junk pile. The thing to do is to sell the customer a new battery. Repairs on an almost worn out battery are expensive and the results may not be satisfactory.

RADIO BATTERIES

The wide-awake battery man will not overlook the new and rapidly growing field which has been opened for him by the installation of hundreds of thousands of radio-phone receiving sets in all parts of the country. The so-called radio "craze" has affected every state, and every battery repairman can increase his income to a considerable extent by selling, charging, and repairing radio storage batteries.

The remarkable growth of the radio-phone has, of course, been due to the radio broadcasting stations which have been established in all parts of the country, and from which concerts, speeches, market reports, baseball reports, news reports, children's stories and religious services are sent out. These broadcasting stations have sending ranges as high as 1,000 miles. The fact that a service station is not located near a broadcasting station is therefore no reason why it should not have its share of the radio battery business, because the broadcasting stations are scattered all over the United States, and receiving sets may be made powerful enough to "pick up" the waves from at least one of the broadcasting stations.

Radio receiving sets may be divided into two general cla.s.ses, the "Crystal" sets and the "Bulb" sets. "Crystal" sets use crystals of galena (lead sulphide), silicon (a crystalline form of silicon, one of the chemical elements), or carborundum (carbide of silicon) to "detect" or, in other words, to rectify the incoming radio waves so that they may be translated into sound by the telephone receivers.

Receiving sets using these crystals do not use a battery, but these sets are not very sensitive, and cannot "pick up" weak waves. This means that crystal receiving sets must be used near the broadcasting stations, before the waves have been weakened by traveling any considerable distance.

As a general rule, the radio-listener's first receiving set uses a crystal detector. Very often it is difficult to obtain good results with such a set, and a more elaborate set is obtained. Moreover, even if a crystal set does give good results, the owner of such a set soon hears of friends who are able to hear concerts sent out from distance stations. This gives him the desire to be able to hear such stations also and he then buys a receiving set which uses the "audion-bulb" for detecting, or rectifying the incoming waves.

The audion-bulb resembles an ordinary incandescent lamp. It contains three elements:

1. In the center of the bulb is a short tungsten filament, the ends of which are brought out to two terminals in the base of the bulb. This filament must be heated to incandescence, and a storage battery is required for this purpose, because it is necessary to have a very steady current in order to obtain clear sounds in the receiver. Lately plans have been suggested for using a direct current lighting line, and even an alternating current lighting line for heating the filament, but at present such plans have not been perfected, and the battery will undoubtedly continue to be used with the majority of sets.

2. Surrounding the filament but not touching it is a helix of wire, only one end of which is brought out to a terminal in the base of the bulb. This helix is called the "grid." In some bulbs the grid is not made in the form of a helix, but is made of two flat gridlike structures, one on each side of the filament.

3. Surrounding the "grid" is the "plate" which is sometimes in the shape of a hollow metallic cylinder. Some plates are not round, but may be oval, or they may be two flat plates joined together at some point, and one placed on either side of the grid. The plate has one terminal in the base of the bulb.

[Fig. 159 Ill.u.s.trating the principle of the Audion Bulb]

The action of an audion-bulb is quite complex, but a simpler explanation, though one which may not be exactly correct from a purely technical point of view, is as follows, referring to Figure 159:

The "A" battery heats the filament, causing a stream of electrically charged particles to flow out from the filament in all directions.

These electrons act as a conductor, and close the circuit which consists of the plate, the "B" battery, and the telephone receivers, one end of this circuit being connected to one side of the filament circuit. Current then flows from the positive terminal of the "B"

battery to the plate, then to the filament by means of the stream of electrons emitted by the filament, along one side of the filament, through the wire connected to the positive terminal of the "A" battery to the telephone receivers, through the receivers to the negative terminal of the "B" battery.

As long as the filament remains lighted a steady current flows through the above circuit. The "grid" is connected to the aerial wire to intercept the radio waves. These waves produce varying electrical charges on the grid. Since the stream of charged particles emitted by the filament must pa.s.s through the grid to reach the plate, the charges which the radio waves produce on the grid strengthen or weaken the stream of electrons emitted by the filament, and thus vary the current flowing in the telephone receiver circuit. The changes in this current cause the receiver diaphragm to vibrate, the vibrations causing sounds to be heard. Since the variation in the telephone receiver circuit is caused by electrical charges produced by the radio waves, and since the radio waves change according to the sounds made at the transmitting station, the variations in the telephone receiver current produces the same sounds that are sent out at the transmitting station. In this way concerts, speeches, etc., are reproduced in the receivers.

The modern radio receiving set includes various devices, such as variable condensers, variocouplers, loose-couplers, variometers, the purpose of which is to "tune" or adjust the receiving set to be capable of receiving the radio waves. An explanation of such devices is not within the scope of this book, but there are numerous reasonably priced books and pamphlets on the market which describes in a simple manner all the component parts of a radio-receiving set.

From the foregoing remarks it is seen that a six-volt storage battery is required with each receiving set which uses the audionbulb type detector. The filament current of an audion-bulb averages about one ampere. If additional bulbs are used to obtain louder sounds, each such bulb also draws one ampere from the storage battery. The standard audion-bulb receiving set does not use more than three bulbs, and hence the maximum current drawn from the battery does not exceed three amperes.

The automobile battery manufacturers have built special radio batteries which have thick plates and thick separators to give longer life. The thick plates are much stronger and more durable than the thin plates used in starting and lighting work, but do not have the heavy current capacity that the starting and lighting battery plates have. A high current capacity is, of course, not necessary for radio work, and hence thick plates are used.

Batteries used for radio work do not operate under the severe conditions which exist on automobiles, and trouble is much less likely to develop. However, the owner of the radio set rarely has any means of keeping his battery charged, and his battery gradually discharges and must then be recharged. It is in the sale of batteries for radio work and in the recharging of them that the battery man can "cash-in"

on the radio phone "craze."

This business rightfully belongs to the automobile battery man and he should go after it as hard as he can. A little advertising by the service station man, stating that he sells radio batteries, and also recharges them should bring in: very profitable business. The battery man who calls for and delivers the radio batteries which need recharging and leaves rental batteries in their place so that there is no interruption in the reception of the evening concerts is the one who will get the business.

As already stated, radio storage batteries have thick plates and thick separators. Perforated rubber sheets are also used in addition to the separators. Large sediment s.p.a.ces are also generally provided to allow a considerable amount of sediment to acc.u.mulate without causing short-circuits. The cases are made of wood or hard rubber. Since radio batteries are used in homes and are, therefore, used with handsomely finished cabinets containing the radio apparatus, the manufacturers give the cases of some of their radio batteries a pleasing varnished or mahogany finish. Before returning radio batteries which have been recharged, the entire batteries should be cleaned and the cases polished. Returning radio batteries in a dirty condition, when they were received clean, and polished, will drive the radio recharging business to some other service station.

VESTA RADIO BATTERIES

The Vesta Battery Corporation manufacturers three special types of "A"

batteries for radio work, as follows: