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Announcing a new advanced machine for producing expanded metal negative and positive lead plates for automotive batteries’ flooded and AGM’s (from 40Ah to 200 Ah plates)
Brief introduction
Car manufacturers and the automotive battery industry are constantly trying to improve the lead acid battery on order to supply customers and end-users with an increasingly high performing quality product and searching constantly to reduce battery weight.
International automotive battery Industries are looking for a new machine for expander metal
To meet the needs of large industries, as well as those of medium and small sized one, a new expanded metal machine has been created.
The expander is flexible with a large variety in the manufacturing of electrodes. Easy to use; it improves productivity and the quality of the automotive batteries being used in the market today.
Main and innovative characteristic of this machine
A main characteristic of this machine is that it produces a wide range of grids with different geometries (LWD - long wide diamond), matching the pitch of 8, 9.6, 12, 12.4 mm; up to step 16 mm, just by replacing the mould in the machine.
With the same mould the manufacturer can vary the geometry according to the needs of the customer, the height of the grid (SWD -Short Wide Diamond) and consequently the plate’s high, the so called last generation batteries’.
As an example; grids for batteries “start and stop”, where you need an electrode that has the ability to resist continuous cars’ starts, with a low state of charge of the battery and at high temperatures.
For this type of electrode, the designer as developed a grid with a step of 9.6 mm called small mesh. It is also possible to produce negative plates with step 12.4 mm, for a final measurement of the length of the plate with 148.8 mm. This type of electrode is applied combined with the positive plate 150 mm long in the AGM (Absorbed Glass Mat) batteries.
At the same time the manufacturer is able to produce grids of low weight (24g) for flooded after market batteries’, with great savings of lead and costs.
Other features of the new expanded metal machine , is to work totally dry (while many other machines on the market except one works with oil lubrication on the plate) , not using oils or anything else such as additives’ for the lubrication of the mould. The advantages of not having a greased grid are obvious as the plate will be ready for a good adhesion of the paste. The benefits will be noticed in the curing phase and in the electrical performance of the final battery.
Further, the machine is flexible because of the thickness of the strip (lead laminate) which can be expanded up to a range of 0.7 to 1 mm. It is fully indexed; this means a precision in the geometry of the diamond, the wire, node, lug, and pitch. There are no differences between the diagonals of the grid, resulting in a less stress of the metal, significantly increasing the quality of the product and the corrosion resistance.
But a great advantage of this machine is to produce a grid with nodes all aligned longitudinally and transversely, allowing the subsequent process divider that is the cutting of the plate on the nodes. All this results in an improved quality of the plate, eliminating or significantly reducing the risks of short circuits due to potential drilled separators by means of wire free and though drastically reducing the plate’s scraps.
Today, some leading automotive battery industries operating in the global market typed twice are fully satisfied by using this of machine. And type Practically, we are proposing an enormous step forward as compared to the world scenario in the manufacturing of expanded metal for automotive batteries.