RE: (ET) Fw: [WT] Trickle Chargers

["Elie, Larry (L.D.)" <lelie ford com>]

I'm glad David had the guts to tell all (and perhaps dispel a few myths?). 
 

Anyway, I do have a few minor additions from a practical sense.

First, on water.

""
> >
> > Also crystals always seem to
> > form around contaminates.  You always put nothing but spotless
> > distilled water in a battery, right?

I don't know if this is the failure mechanism, but minerals in a battery
are definitely bad news.  Use distilled water or water from a reverse
osmosis filter. 

Warning: some supermarked bottled distilled water is not very clean!  Boil
some down before you assume that it's what it claims to be! 

Don't cheap out and use water from your air conditioner or dehumidifier. 
It will contain dirt and mold spores -- nasty stuff.

""

I know people in electric vehicle testing.  They have tried triply 
distilled water on down to de-ionized water.  Verdict; the batteries don't 
care much as long as the water is DE-IONIZED and DE-MINERALIZED.  'Spring' 
water is too high in minerals.  Tap water as well.  But de-ionized works 
pretty much the same as distilled.  I'm just reporting test results, not 
trying to explain them.

Oh, yeah, and ANY water is better than no water; else you WILL melt the 
plates.  Use the wrong water and you lose lifetime; a very bad thing.  Use 
NO water and you have NO lifetime; a very-very bad thing.  I almost blew a 
whole pack last week!  BTW, I am told battery 're-manufacturers' (an 
oxy-moron, because this isn't what they do!) 'repair' batteries by opening 
up the top, clean out debris, and separate any touching plates.  Sounds 
pretty weak to me!  Not what you want in a deep discharge battery!

Another tip:  don't leave a nearly discharged battery exposed to deep 
sub-freezing temperatures; they freeze and crack.

Last tip:  MEASURE!  Voltage is not a great measure of how much energy is 
in a battery, but it is simple and infers pretty well if batteries are 
charged or not.  Even if you have the ET charger working pretty well, 
charge equalization is an issue.  Don't be afraid of a trickle charger.  
The ET charger is isolated; you can trickle the 'weakest' battery (or 
pair) while you charge the whole pack, at least for a while.  For me, this 
is a bigger deal if I have been tilling until the ET just limps in.  Three 
of the batteries do the back lift and they have to lift almost 300# of 
tiller at each end of the field.  Up/down perhaps 30 times in an hour.  
Those batteries are lower than the others when I start to charge.  Bill 
told me that he now suggests people use 12V inverters for light work (they 
are cheap and available) even though you get the same problem.  I think 
mowing at night will get you in the same place.  Given longer charging 
time, the batteries will all equalize.  The batt!
eries should be more or less at the same voltage when fully charged, 
within about 0.15 V.  Batteries can be thought of as an integrator; that 
little .15V represents an enormous difference in energy.  You will get 
longer mow/work times if you get them that close.  You still have to 
'over' charge a bit for CELL equalization because you can't get at the 
individual cells on modern batteries and cell equalization is always an 
issue on any series connected battery.

Larry Elie

And has anyone found me a link for those battery eyes!