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On Fri, 29 Jul 2005 23:14:06 -0400, Larry wrote:
"Rusty" wrote in news ![]() I've already done that. The 750 amp-hour 24 volt main system of Trojan industrial cells is charged by a Trace SW4024 inverter/charger. Went two years without HydroCaps and added at least some water every month. Changed to HydroCaps and now I only add a little bit after every six to eight months. Right now the last time I added water was almost nine months ago and they're still full. Batteries are showing no signs of losing capacity and the tops are always clean. Rusty While I'm sure the caps do exactly what they are supposed to, that's fine. But, the reason the batteries are using water in the first place, i.e. being overcharged, isn't resolved when you keep gassing off the water with the overcharging, to recover it in these magicaps. At your "full charge" voltage setting you should rarely see a bubble coming out of the electrolyte. 14.2 seems too high on some cells. When the specific gravity gets to 1.260-1.270, the charger should be OFF, not pulsing away momentarily unless there is some load on them. Larry, I've always enjoyed your posts and the knowledge you clearly have. However, I think you need to study up on batteries a little more. Batteries will always loose some water, even without overcharging. Rather, I should say batteries are always slightly overcharged as a practical matter. If you charged below the gassing voltage- say 13.8 volts, the amount of extra charging time required to top-off the batteries is extreme. Charging at say 14.5 volts (standard for solar charging) and letting them gas a little shaves a heck of allot of time off the charging time- thus the costs as well. Controlled slight gassing is also good for the batteries as it prevents the electrolyte for stratifying in the cells. Battery manufactures recommend that the batteries are charged at voltages that will do just this, when in cycled service. The only time you don't want to charge above gassing voltage is batteries used in float/standby service. Hydrocaps also solve the problems of loosing water to evaporation and the problem of losing the acid, thus weakening the electrolyte. They also virtually eliminate dirty acid covered and dirty battery tops. Hydrocaps are expensive, but well worth the costs. Shop around, as there can be a significant discount at some shops. -- BRENT - The Usenet typo king. ![]() |
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