How would you apply No-Ox grease in this application?

[Power_Plant_Matt]

I have a battery bank with about 100 cells that are linked together using 1/4" x 3" x 8" aluminum bars. Maintenance and I have been trying to figure out what the "appropriate" amount of No-Ox would be to apply on the links, posts, and connection points and also how to apply it (paint brush, paper towel, rubber glove, wipe off excess, leave on excess). It seems like it should be a no-brainer, but we've actually had quite a long conversation about it. The environment is clean, dry, temperature controlled to around 70F, and indoors. Any tips? I attached some photos for reference.

This one has more grease

This one has less grease

 

[catserveng]

I've tried a bunch of different ways over 40+ years of doing this, for me my best results have always been with bare hands, idea is to leave a fine film, obviously clumps of grease isn't what you want as an end result.

I have fairly good results using a foam style paint brush, seems to be about the closest I could get to just leaving behind a fine film.

On the hardware, I usually do a thin wipe under the bolt head, and dip a couple threads of the end of the bolt in the compound, then, as I run the nut on is seems to do a pretty good job of coating the surrounding areas, then wipe any excess on the outer parts of the hardware.

One main problem I see at a lot of sites, you can tell when where someone started the job, and where they finished, its a tedious job to do well, and tends to get sloppy as the work goes on.

Hope that helps, MikeL.

 

[waross]

I wire brush the contact surface of the aluminum and immediately apply a layer of grease. If you go for coffee before applying the grease, re-clean the aluminum gain. Aluminum forms a surface oxide very quickly.
Clean the battery posts and coat with grease.
Do the nuts, bolts and washers as Mine describes.
Wipe off excess grease. It attracts dust, that may become conductive on humid days.
It is the mating contact surfaces that are the most important to protect from oxidation.
I have seen aluminum compression splices destroyed by over heating caused by aluminum oxide when the joint was made without cleaning the aluminum first and the No-Ox grease then applied to the outer surface.


Bill
--------------------
"Why not the best?"
Jimmy Carter

 

[FreddyNurk]

What's the potential of the battery bank? Some things that you can get away with at ELV become problematic as the potential increases.

EDMS Australia

 

[Power_Plant_Matt]

Thanks for your replies. They've all been really helpful.

What's the potential of the battery bank? Some things that you can get away with at ELV become problematic as the potential increases.
The potential of each battery is about 2V and the potential of the whole bank is around 250V.

Matt