RE: (ET) Voltmeters/battery

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

It might be, if that's all you use the lights and lift.  Let me give you 
one very real example:

I have a tiller, disc and cultivator.  I have an acre and a half of 
strawberries, raspberries and other
garden things.  The rows are about 160' long.  I LIFT the tiller at the 
end of each row.  I can't till 
the whole thing on one charge.  Tilling is slow, so I don't run the lift 
that often as a percent of the 
run time.  Then I got the disc.  I STILL LIFT the disc at the end 
(although it's not as heavy), but I 
get at the end real quick.  With about 150 rows, in one disc session, I 
lift the disc 150 times in about 
2 hours.  When I'm done, the 3 lift batteries are ALL down about .4V from 
the others.  That represents a 
whale of a lot of charge.  Happily, the lights are tapped of different 
batteries, but if you mowed for 2 
hours at night I suspect you would see a similar issue.  The problem is 
not that it 'hurts' anything, 
just that you have to charge an extra hour or more to equalize the 
batteries, or trickle up the ones 
that dropped.

BTW, the rear lift taps separate from the front lift, with it's own 
separate line fuse and switch.

The lift can't have anything to do with the long term condition of my 
front 2 batteries.

Larry Elie


-----Original Message-----
From: goodguyforsure [mailto:goodguyforsure hotmail com]
Sent: Tuesday, May 13, 2003 11:36 PM
To: elec-trak cosmos phy tufts edu
Subject: Re: (ET) Voltmeters/battery


I think all this talk of differential use of the batteries that are tapped
is nonsense!  I don't use my lights and the lift gets used once per 2 hour
mowing session! That little bit of draw will hardly show on the
batteries.....
John Briese
I-5
----- Original Message -----
From: "Dave & Debbie Barden" <daveb seanet com>
To: "matt" <matty tds net>; <elec-trak cosmos phy tufts edu>
Sent: Tuesday, May 13, 2003 10:08 AM
Subject: Re: (ET) Voltmeters/battery


> My e12 taps 12v for the lights and 18v for the front lift motor.  those
> batteries that are tapped will always read lower than the batteries that
are
> not. to get equal draw on all batteries you would need to replace the 
> taps
with
> a dc-dc converter(s) to provide power to the lights and lift motor.
>
> dave
> seattle
>
> > At 11:35 AM 5/13/03 -0500, you wrote:
> > >Hi,
> > >Recently several of you suggested that it might be nice to know the
> > >relative state of each battery in the pack. I too thought that would 
> > >be
> > >interesting to know since it is messy and time consuming to determine
> > >that by hydrometer. So I  hooked up six voltmeters, one to each
battery.
> > >So.....they are indeed wonderful indicators of relative battery
> > >condition especially under load. Hydrometer readings verify the
> > >voltmeter readings. Usually one of the three cells go bad first in a
six
> > >volt battery. A voltmeter cannot indicate which one, of course, but it
> > >does give a relative indication of what is going on. Under load the
> > >relative strength of each battery in the pack is quite visible even
with
> > >the cheap meters I am using. If anyone is interested in knowing more I
> > >can individually email digital photos and/or a schematic diagram (the
> > >list owner does not permit this due to storage limitations).
> > >Regards,
> > >Tom
> >
> >  It would be interesting to know what batts go bad first.
> > The one after the charger? Next to the cut out switch?
> > One farthest from the charger?
> > on mine it was the 2 next to the cut out switch. One in front, one in
back.
> > >
> > >
> > Matthew P.Magda Jr.
> >
> >
> >
>
>
>
>
>
>