Braille Battery

Braille batteries is a relatively new name in the battery industry.  Their claim to fame is their application.  The company says that they spend their time and effort working with designers, engineers and drivers to enhance their batteries for performance minded drivers.  This means that if you're a racer or an aspiring racer, then Braille is making batteries that are designed just for you.

Braille Batteries was founded by a racer.  In his quest to find a way to win the Pikes Peak Hill Climb, this racer eventually did win this race, and he claims that his own research into batteries, among other things, were what made him so successful.  He won rookie of the year in 1999 and four years later, he won the "Race to the Clouds".

While it's undoubted that there were many things besides just the battery that helped the founder of Braille win that race, the company does produce some of the lightest batteries in production today.  They include a line of lithium ion batteries that weight as little as 3 pounds.  Their batteries can be found in the cars of Tanner Foust, Penske Racing, and Pratt & Miller Motorsports.  If you're looking for a light battery, then Braille Batteries has one for you.

Litium Ion, or Li-Ion, batteries are ones in which a lithium ion carries the current from the positive to negative cells. Traditional auto batteries are lead-acid, where sulfuric acid and lead are the agents that produce electrical current. The advantages of li-ion batteries are their weights as well as the number of times they can be discharged and the depth to which they can be discharged.

There are some disadvantages of the litium iod design. While they do allow for a greater reducion in weight, they are more succeptible to heat than their lead-acid counterparts, and they rate of self discharge is much greater. In fact, li-ion batteries don't self-discharge but rather simply lose capacity over time. This happens at a rate of up to 20% per year, which means that their effective life, depending on conditions and use, is shorter than many lead-acid batteries.

Lithium Ion batteries are not the only thing that Braille does. In fact, they specialize in a number of light-weight battery designs that incorportate the traditional lead-acid design with modern features that other batteries do not have. Here is a short list of some of the features that you will find on Braille batteries:

• Dual terminal design - this allows you to change the location of the terminals to fit your application. If you need top or side post, these batteries can do both.
• Stainless steel or brass terminals - you can choose to use eiter stainless steel or brass terminals, depending on your application. The stainless steel terminals allow for greater abuse, while the brass terminals give you clean and consistent power.
• Sealed, no maintenance design
• Green construction

While the company provides some advantages that others don't, there are a few things that must be noted:

• "No Maintenance" is not no maintenance. Just because the top is sealed doesn't mean that there isn't loss of electrolytes. This is important to remember, as batteries that are not sealed allow you to add distilled water and increase the life of the battery. When a braille battery is dead, it's dead & there's no recovering it.
• Terminal design - while this is definitely a plus, the cost of a Braille battery is significant. Whether you need top post design or side post, you can find a battery with either one of these for less than half the price. In addition, the material that the terminals are made from may be negligable for you. If you're concerned with audio, for shows for example, then having the brass posts may be good for you. Also, if you're going to truly abuse your battery, in competition for example, maybe the stainless steel option is good. If you're a regular driver, however, these are features that you don't need to worry about & are overkill.