(Larry) wrote in message ...
Are you losing a lot of electrolyte with this charging? If the
batteries are being overcharged the electrolyte level will drop as the
cells gassify into hydrogen, bubbling away so you can hear it.

If you don't have to add a lot of DISTILLED WATER ONLY to the cells
every month....the charger is working just fine!



On Tue, 12 Aug 2003 21:14:18 GMT, jeannette
wrote:

Hi group,

I bought an alternator with a built-in 3 stages regulator. The voltage
coming out of it seems to be constant at 14.40v. The batteries are
fully charged now and the charge current is very small (1amp) but the
voltage remain at 14.40v. Is that normal?. I am told by the
manufacturer that it's the way it should be. I would have thought that
the voltage should come down to a lower level once the batteries are
full.

What do you think?


Jeannette Bristol 32, San Francisco
http://www.eblw.com/contepartiro/contepartiro.html

Larry

Extremely intelligent life must exist in the universe.
You can tell because they never tried to contact us.


Jeannette, after you have let your batteries rest overnigt, do they
still show 14.4 V. My expectation is that you would foind them
shoiwing 12.8 V which indicates a fully charged battery. The three
stages are different in the amps delivered by the alternator to the
batteries, bulk is about 25% of their capoacity, acceptancea around
10% and float about 1% of the capacity, but always at 14.4 V - it's
only the "equalization" which your smart regulator may not have that
injects 16 V at low amperage to remove the sulfation of the plates by
making the battery "boil" for about half an hour, after which you;ve
got to add some distilled water to bring back the level of electrolyte
john