By Hugh Abner
[46 Years and Counting Manufacturing Batteries and Battery Machinery]

Samuel Insull

If you read my last blog, (Thank you!), and if you read it closely you would have know that Mr. Samuel Insull was going to be brought to your attention again. Not because he was a battery man as most of us here consider ourselves to be but because our industry of Pb-acid batteries is one of the cousins in the electrical energy family. In the family of energy Insull was huge. No! Do not do as some of my fellow workers have done when I mentioned Insull. They literally rushed to be impressive with names they knew from history. Read the rest of this entry »

By Hugh Abner
[46 Years and Counting Manufacturing Batteries and Battery Machinery]

The most prominent energy researcher of our times has said, “Batteries used for electrical vehicles will have to be standardized.” ————— Okay, come on now ————- stop laughing. Seriously! Cut it out. We have things we need to discuss here. SHUT UP AND QUIT LAUGHING. Now of course a group of people like you in the SLIG battery industry know something about a standardized battery market. You know there simply isn’t one. I have not added them up lately but there are hundreds of battery designs just in the Pb-acid types. Read the rest of this entry »

By Hugh Abner
[46 Years and Counting Manufacturing Batteries and Battery Machinery]

One time years ago when I had the duties of a manufacturing engineer for a British owned American battery company I was assigned the task of accompanying one of our corporate health doctors through visits to our multiple U.S. factories. I had no idea his thing would be mostly after-hours work. As it turned out, though, it was not only interesting, it was fun. Read the rest of this entry »

By Hugh Abner
[44 Years and Counting Manufacturing Batteries and Battery Machinery]

For this Blog I am going to get away from the usual comments about battery machinery even though there is much more of that to discuss. We still have one major machine in the Top Lead series which is fundamental to the industry and a big part of Farmer Mold and Machine Works, Inc. That would be the FMMW Bonder or what some call the Top Terminal Burner. Today though I am going to describe some battery manufacturing people. The first ones I met. Read the rest of this entry »

By Hugh Abner
[44 Years and Counting Manufacturing Batteries and Battery Machinery]

Well you have waited patiently on this version of Top Lead so I thank you. There is so much going on the world it is hard to resist taking advantage of this Blog format for commentary rather than historical review of the evolution of battery components. But Lead Acid Batteries are our thing. We at FMMW have been almost totally involved in the top lead of batteries for the past 40 years. Before that it was mostly grid casting machines and molds so that explains why we have been around for nearly 80 years now. Read the rest of this entry »