From the Rolls-Royce experimental archive: a quarter of a million communications from Rolls-Royce, 1906 to 1960's. Documents from the Sir Henry Royce Memorial Foundation (SHRMF).
Letter from accumulator manufacturer Peto & Radford clarifying issues regarding battery overcharging and premature failures.
| Identifier | ExFiles\Box 54\1\ Scan054 | |
| Date | 27th November 1925 | |
| Works, Dagenham Dock, Essex TELEPHONE: VICTORIA 3667. 5 LINES. PRIVATE BRANCH EXCHANGE. TELEGRAMS: CONCENTRATION, SOWEST, LONDON. Manufacturers of P&R Accumulators. Established 1889. PETO & RADFORD Proprietors - Pritchett & Gold and E.P.S. Company Ltd. 50 GROSVENOR GARDENS, LONDON. S.W.I. DIRECTORS: S.R. ARCHIBALD, G.GOLD K.C. GRAHAM MENZIES G.R.N. MINCHIN WILLIAM PETO C.R.D. PRITCHETT T.W. PRITCHETT. YOUR REF._______ OUR REF. M/5. 27th November 1925. Handwritten notes: X4617 P, 2, X.8660, X8780. E.{Mr Elliott - Chief Engineer} Fowler Clark Esq., Messrs. Rolls Royce Ltd., DERBY. Dear Fowler Clark, Thanks for yours of the 24th inst. I am afraid I misled you in my last letter in not being sufficiently explicit about my statements about our batteries and the Exide. These all referred to batteries of some years age. The word "lots" perhaps is an exaggeration and it would be more accurate to say "several". The Exide ones were their earlier type fitted to cars in 1920, 1921, 1922 etc. and the owners seemed to know that our latest battery was the same dimensions and would fit their box, so there was not any case of any premature breakdown. I still say that all that we have had back had every appearance of being over-charged and my point was that if they were over-charged with the Lucas dynamo I think they will stand a very good chance of being over-charged with the present dynamo, chiefly because of this switching off business which is much less likely to be done than it was when the Lucas dynamo (with its separate switch) was fitted. We have also replaced some 20 H.F. batteries, but again they were all fairly old ones. I think that in many of the cases the cars have changed hands so that you would hardly expect the present owner to get in touch with you about it, and many of them came to us from the trade who perhaps were selling a car which they had had in stock for some time and when they came to sell it found the battery was finished and had to buy another, but it does not alter the fact that the battery was finished by overcharging. We have had no case of failure of any of the R.R.11 | ||