I agree buy the distilled water and get on with it. I have seen people put
dirty river water in a battery and last for many years later. don't be so
picky

Steve wrote:

In another store I found two brands of "distilled" water. One label stated
that it came for "Portland water system, charcoal filtered, Reverse Osmoses
or steam distilation." I many not have the wording exactly, but that "OR"
worrys me. Else where on the label it states that it has less than 1ppm
solids.


If that is from the Portland, Oregon water supply it is good enough to
use out of the tap.

I purchased a couple gallons of the product that provided the info on TDS
(1ppm) but now I'm unsure of how high a TDS I should allow.. I have no idea
where to have a sample tested of the other stuff..

If you are really that uptight about the water you can buy a small TDS
meter for a couple of hundred bucks. They read in either PPM or TDS and
for conversion purposes PPM is about 2/3rds of TDS in micromhos and good
distillate will be well under a hundred and really good is under 10 mmhos.

If you are desperate send me a pint and I will test it for TDS,
chlorides, and pH but it hardly seems worth the effort. The first time
you add water through a salt-air damp funnel or transfer crud from the
battery fill necks you will have wasted a years worth of worrying.

Anyone have any idea of what would be exceptable for my $600+ battery bank??
Perhaps I should call Trojan??

Makes a lot more sense than believing what you read in a newsgroup.

Rick

Steve-
You can get a handheld TDS meter from Village Marine for about $60. During
our three year cruise of the Eastern Caribbean, I used to make the water for
my 12xT105s in accordance with the manual for the water maker...use the RO
water as the feed but you must reduce the pressure from 850psig to 200psig.
Regards-
Charlie

Distilled water is easy to test. All you need is a common ohmmeter,
especially one with a high resistance range (not the cheapest thing
Radio Shack sells for $10 like most boaters use).

Distilled water has a resistance of infinity, it's an INSULATOR!
Broadcast transmitters, like RCA's big UHF TV transmitter with two
huge klystron tubes that must be water cooled, put 18,000 VDC on their
klystron tube's collector.....inside the boiler where the distilled
water is perking away absorbing the energy of the massive dose of
electrons crashing headlong into the big copper collector. A meter
measures "body current" which shows the leakage through the distilled
water back to the big power supply whos transformers look like your
neighborhood power company substation. A demineralizer sucks out the
copper ions that happen when the tinest impurities in the distilled
water eat away at the copper, mostly making copper sulphate, a
conductor. In pure distilled water, copper doesn't even discolor
because distilled water is very stable.

So, all we need to do is take a sample of the "distilled" water you
bought and set the ohmmeter on its highest ohm range and put the two
test probes down into the water as close together as you can get them
without touching them to each other......and the meter should still
read INFINITY resistance. Anything less should not be put in a
battery.

I make about 12 gallons of distilled water in 24 hours with my
commercial distiller. Having had 4 kidney stones removed because
Charleston water is like a calcium bath, I said enough is enough.
Mine is made of porcelain with stainless tubing adn parts and latex
surgical hoses to connect the cooled water to the outside world,
totally inert. I have a 10,000 volt "Hipot Tester" used to test
electrical insulators to test its purity. The Hipot tester current
meter at 10KV moves barely perceptibly when two platinum wires are
inserted into a glass beaker of my water that are 4" long and 1"
apart. The local water test lab says I'm producing better distilled
water than they have. I gave them a gallon to use for their tests as
a thank you for the water testing.

I paid $18 for the distiller, brand new, from a surplus thrift shop
who had no idea what it was, the find of a lifetime of dumpster
diving. It's retail value is about $900. Distilled water costs about
25 cents per gallon at 8 cents per kilowatt hour of electricity.

If you ever saw what Charleston city swampwater looked like after I
boil away 24 gallons of H2O from it that's left in my boiler tank,
you'd NEVER drink from a drinking fountain or tap again....It's brown
like....well, you know....and huge calcium deposits coat everything in
the distiller, not my kidneys, thank you!

Oh, just for the RO lovers who've been convinced distilling takes out
valuable health minerals, it's all a lie. The human body CANNOT use
elemental metals to build strong bones and teeth and keep you healthy.
Water, in case you haven't peed lately, is the body's FLUSHING WATER
and the purer it is, the better it acts as a solvent to flush out the
junk from you. ORGANIC calcium, not elemental calcium builds bones.
No kidney stones in 5 years, now....(c;

If you taste that "distilled water" from the store, you'll notice it
tastes like metal dissolved in it. Distilling also distills anything
that can be boiled off of the original water....like xylene, benzene,
toulene, all the other enes polluting out water supply. Our water
tests pretty high, but below the "safe level" for benzene, which comes
from airplanes burning JP4 by the billions of gallons per year, I'm
told. (see my tagline). This can be easily removed by passing the
distilled water from the distiller through a column of activated
carbon (not charcoal which introduces pollution). Pure activated
carbon is really cheap on a 16 oz container in the fish department of
every WalMart in a plastic jug. I think a lifetime supply is about
$3. The activated carbon bonds, chemically, with the enes which
attach themselves, permanently to the carbon forming new molecules...
My system uses a nylon meat baster for a carbon column. Remove the
rubber squeeze bulb from the nylon body of the baster and cut a slot
in the end of the bulb. Push the pointy end of the baster through the
slot through the bulb and let it stick out about an inch below the
original bulb's open hole. This makes a plug that holds the baster
vertical perfectly in the top of a 5-gallon standard water jug that
fits my water cooler. The baster body has a little cone of coffee
filter paper pushed into the bottom end from the top to keep the
carbon from getting into the jug. Carbon is spooned into the baster
on top of this filter cone until it's within 1/2" of the top. The
water outlet hose is put in the top of the baster and she's ready to
filter a batch of "homebrew". The water that ends up in the jug, now
free of all distillable enes is DELICIOUS as well as perfect. The
metallic taste of the enes is completely gone because they have been
absorbed trickling down through the carbon. For sanitary purposes,
the filter cone and carbon are disposed of each time I make a batch
and fill my many bottles. Actually the carbon becomes so HOT from
this chemical reaction no virus or bacteria could survive. NYLON is
necessary because the heat cracked the glass one and melted the
plastic basters in less than 5 minutes! But, carbon is so cheap...why
take a chance?

Well, all my friends get battery water from here. Maybe I should
start marketing it!.....(c;

Hmm...custom battery water - $4.99/gallon
custom BOAT battery water - $18.95/gallon at West Marine....
That's about right, isn't it?
We'll put some pennant flags and a steamship's wheel on the marine
bottles to make it "Look Nautical"....It'll sell like hotcakes....

Which captain and boat magazines shall we get to endorse
it.......hmmm.......



On Sat, 27 Sep 2003 12:00:54 -0700, "Steve" wrote:

Thanks for all the tips on finding distilled water for my batteries.

However, I still remain sceptical regarding the quality of the supermarket
"distilled water".

In one store I found it labeled as "steam distilled" water but no reference
to the TDS (total desolved solids).

In another store I found two brands of "distilled" water. One label stated
that it came for "Portland water system, charcoal filtered, Reverse Osmoses
or steam distilation." I many not have the wording exactly, but that "OR"
worrys me. Else where on the label it states that it has less than 1ppm
solids.

The other brand only indicated that it came from a plant in New Hampshire
and gave a 800 number. Surprisingly, I called it at 1700 Pac. time and got a
real live and helpful person. He had to go check when I as what process was
used to produce the "distilled water". Without any prompting, as to what
answer I wanted to hear, he came back on the line and told me it was Steam
Distilled. However, I neglected to ask if he know what the TDS was for this
product. I got the impression that he was just an answering service for the
distiller and had to call someone for all technical matters.

I purchased a couple gallons of the product that provided the info on TDS
(1ppm) but now I'm unsure of how high a TDS I should allow.. I have no idea
where to have a sample tested of the other stuff..

Anyone have any idea of what would be exceptable for my $600+ battery bank??
Perhaps I should call Trojan??

BTW. I had several gallon jugs of nice clean rain water. Well, after sitting
on the shelf for 2 years, this water developed green algae bloom.. I dumpted
it out but later, I realized I could have filtered it through coffee
filters.

Steve
s/v Good Intentions




Larry W4CSC

3600 planes with transponders are burning 8-10 million
gallons of kerosene per hour over the USA. R-12 car air
conditioners are responsible for the ozone hole, right?

On Sat, 27 Sep 2003 20:33:19 -0400, Glenn Ashmore
wrote:

Steve, the steam distilled is as good as it gets unless you pay through
the nose for laboratory grade USP water. I have been playing with this
Hanna TDS meter that I am putting on my watermaker. It came with
calibration samples of USP water and a 1000 ppm TDS sample. I
calibrated zero ppm with the USP water and 1000 ppm with the other
sample then started playing with different samples. The kitchen faucet
read 190 ppm. A sample of grocery store distilled water was 15 ppm.
Less than 8% of faucet water.

What's the RO water reading? Grocery store distilled is probably
tainted by benzene and other light enes and fuels that will also
distill. Try filtering the store distilled through a 6" column of
activated carbon from any WalMart fish department. Taste the
difference between the unfiltered and filtered. It's easy to taste
the metallic taste is gone from the filtered. I'd like to know if
your TDS reads different before and after the filtering. (See my post
here about my distillation plant...(c

Be real careful of that RO watermaker. There's lots of evidence now
that it does block the bacteria, BUT, the pressure is breaking the
bacteria apart and releasing its toxins whos molecules are so small
they flow through the membrane into your drinking water. They're
searching for answers to these cruise ships mass casualties and,
currently, all fingers are pointing at the RO watermakers in the
bilge....



Larry W4CSC

3600 planes with transponders are burning 8-10 million
gallons of kerosene per hour over the USA. R-12 car air
conditioners are responsible for the ozone hole, right?

"Mark" wrote in message
om...
Anyone have any idea of what would be exceptable for my $600+ battery
bank??
Perhaps I should call Trojan??


I called Trojan headquarters last week and asked exactly that
question. The technician said 100ppm TDS or less is acceptable for a
typical boat application, and grocery store "distilled" water almost
always beats that spec by a mile. If not, there'd be a whole bunch of
ladies toting steam irons raising holy hell at the store.

We also talked about RO watermakers; he said they typically produce
200ppm water which is not acceptable long term, but certainly a top
off or two isn't a concern. He said there's a simple solution for
cruisers with RO in far away places; run the RO product water through
the watermaker a second time to make your battery water.

One simple solution is to use sealed batteries

Larry W4CSC wrote:

3600 planes with transponders are burning 8-10 million
gallons of kerosene per hour over the USA. R-12 car air
conditioners are responsible for the ozone hole, right?

Perhaps you need to add another layer to your tinfoil hat and reduce
your exposure to RF from those transponders.

You really have been listening to too much AM radio lately, your posts
have gone from weird to bizarre.

Rick

I've always found distilled water pretty bland to drink.
Not sure DELICIOUS would be my description of water that
has no taste

Doug

"Larry W4CSC" wrote in message
...
Distilled water is easy to test. All you need is a common ohmmeter,
especially one with a high resistance range (not the cheapest thing
Radio Shack sells for $10 like most boaters use).

Distilled water has a resistance of infinity, it's an INSULATOR!
Broadcast transmitters, like RCA's big UHF TV transmitter with two
huge klystron tubes that must be water cooled, put 18,000 VDC on their
klystron tube's collector.....inside the boiler where the distilled
water is perking away absorbing the energy of the massive dose of
electrons crashing headlong into the big copper collector. A meter
measures "body current" which shows the leakage through the distilled
water back to the big power supply whos transformers look like your
neighborhood power company substation. A demineralizer sucks out the
copper ions that happen when the tinest impurities in the distilled
water eat away at the copper, mostly making copper sulphate, a
conductor. In pure distilled water, copper doesn't even discolor
because distilled water is very stable.

So, all we need to do is take a sample of the "distilled" water you
bought and set the ohmmeter on its highest ohm range and put the two
test probes down into the water as close together as you can get them
without touching them to each other......and the meter should still
read INFINITY resistance. Anything less should not be put in a
battery.

I make about 12 gallons of distilled water in 24 hours with my
commercial distiller. Having had 4 kidney stones removed because
Charleston water is like a calcium bath, I said enough is enough.
Mine is made of porcelain with stainless tubing adn parts and latex
surgical hoses to connect the cooled water to the outside world,
totally inert. I have a 10,000 volt "Hipot Tester" used to test
electrical insulators to test its purity. The Hipot tester current
meter at 10KV moves barely perceptibly when two platinum wires are
inserted into a glass beaker of my water that are 4" long and 1"
apart. The local water test lab says I'm producing better distilled
water than they have. I gave them a gallon to use for their tests as
a thank you for the water testing.

I paid $18 for the distiller, brand new, from a surplus thrift shop
who had no idea what it was, the find of a lifetime of dumpster
diving. It's retail value is about $900. Distilled water costs about
25 cents per gallon at 8 cents per kilowatt hour of electricity.

If you ever saw what Charleston city swampwater looked like after I
boil away 24 gallons of H2O from it that's left in my boiler tank,
you'd NEVER drink from a drinking fountain or tap again....It's brown
like....well, you know....and huge calcium deposits coat everything in
the distiller, not my kidneys, thank you!

Oh, just for the RO lovers who've been convinced distilling takes out
valuable health minerals, it's all a lie. The human body CANNOT use
elemental metals to build strong bones and teeth and keep you healthy.
Water, in case you haven't peed lately, is the body's FLUSHING WATER
and the purer it is, the better it acts as a solvent to flush out the
junk from you. ORGANIC calcium, not elemental calcium builds bones.
No kidney stones in 5 years, now....(c;

If you taste that "distilled water" from the store, you'll notice it
tastes like metal dissolved in it. Distilling also distills anything
that can be boiled off of the original water....like xylene, benzene,
toulene, all the other enes polluting out water supply. Our water
tests pretty high, but below the "safe level" for benzene, which comes
from airplanes burning JP4 by the billions of gallons per year, I'm
told. (see my tagline). This can be easily removed by passing the
distilled water from the distiller through a column of activated
carbon (not charcoal which introduces pollution). Pure activated
carbon is really cheap on a 16 oz container in the fish department of
every WalMart in a plastic jug. I think a lifetime supply is about
$3. The activated carbon bonds, chemically, with the enes which
attach themselves, permanently to the carbon forming new molecules...
My system uses a nylon meat baster for a carbon column. Remove the
rubber squeeze bulb from the nylon body of the baster and cut a slot
in the end of the bulb. Push the pointy end of the baster through the
slot through the bulb and let it stick out about an inch below the
original bulb's open hole. This makes a plug that holds the baster
vertical perfectly in the top of a 5-gallon standard water jug that
fits my water cooler. The baster body has a little cone of coffee
filter paper pushed into the bottom end from the top to keep the
carbon from getting into the jug. Carbon is spooned into the baster
on top of this filter cone until it's within 1/2" of the top. The
water outlet hose is put in the top of the baster and she's ready to
filter a batch of "homebrew". The water that ends up in the jug, now
free of all distillable enes is DELICIOUS as well as perfect. The
metallic taste of the enes is completely gone because they have been
absorbed trickling down through the carbon. For sanitary purposes,
the filter cone and carbon are disposed of each time I make a batch
and fill my many bottles. Actually the carbon becomes so HOT from
this chemical reaction no virus or bacteria could survive. NYLON is
necessary because the heat cracked the glass one and melted the
plastic basters in less than 5 minutes! But, carbon is so cheap...why
take a chance?

Well, all my friends get battery water from here. Maybe I should
start marketing it!.....(c;

Hmm...custom battery water - $4.99/gallon
custom BOAT battery water - $18.95/gallon at West Marine....
That's about right, isn't it?
We'll put some pennant flags and a steamship's wheel on the marine
bottles to make it "Look Nautical"....It'll sell like hotcakes....

Which captain and boat magazines shall we get to endorse
it.......hmmm.......



On Sat, 27 Sep 2003 12:00:54 -0700, "Steve" wrote:

Thanks for all the tips on finding distilled water for my batteries.

However, I still remain sceptical regarding the quality of the
supermarket
"distilled water".

In one store I found it labeled as "steam distilled" water but no
reference
to the TDS (total desolved solids).

In another store I found two brands of "distilled" water. One label
stated
that it came for "Portland water system, charcoal filtered, Reverse
Osmoses
or steam distilation." I many not have the wording exactly, but that "OR"
worrys me. Else where on the label it states that it has less than 1ppm
solids.

The other brand only indicated that it came from a plant in New Hampshire
and gave a 800 number. Surprisingly, I called it at 1700 Pac. time and
got a
real live and helpful person. He had to go check when I as what process
was
used to produce the "distilled water". Without any prompting, as to what
answer I wanted to hear, he came back on the line and told me it was
Steam
Distilled. However, I neglected to ask if he know what the TDS was for
this
product. I got the impression that he was just an answering service for
the
distiller and had to call someone for all technical matters.

I purchased a couple gallons of the product that provided the info on TDS
(1ppm) but now I'm unsure of how high a TDS I should allow.. I have no
idea
where to have a sample tested of the other stuff..

Anyone have any idea of what would be exceptable for my $600+ battery
bank??
Perhaps I should call Trojan??

BTW. I had several gallon jugs of nice clean rain water. Well, after
sitting
on the shelf for 2 years, this water developed green algae bloom.. I
dumpted
it out but later, I realized I could have filtered it through coffee
filters.

Steve
s/v Good Intentions




Larry W4CSC

3600 planes with transponders are burning 8-10 million
gallons of kerosene per hour over the USA. R-12 car air
conditioners are responsible for the ozone hole, right?

But it makes great coffee.

Ron

That's the taste of it before carbon filtration. It tastes awful with
the other distillates left in it. Everyone compliments me on my
homebrew water wherever it's served. They all like the taste. I
always come home with empty containers.

You don't suppose they're dumping it overboard while I'm asleep, do
you??....(c;

Pour the distilled through 6" of activated carbon and try it again...


On Sun, 28 Sep 2003 18:11:18 -0400, "Doug Dotson"
wrote:

I've always found distilled water pretty bland to drink.
Not sure DELICIOUS would be my description of water that
has no taste

Doug

"Larry W4CSC" wrote in message
...
Distilled water is easy to test. All you need is a common ohmmeter,
especially one with a high resistance range (not the cheapest thing
Radio Shack sells for $10 like most boaters use).

Distilled water has a resistance of infinity, it's an INSULATOR!
Broadcast transmitters, like RCA's big UHF TV transmitter with two
huge klystron tubes that must be water cooled, put 18,000 VDC on their
klystron tube's collector.....inside the boiler where the distilled
water is perking away absorbing the energy of the massive dose of
electrons crashing headlong into the big copper collector. A meter
measures "body current" which shows the leakage through the distilled
water back to the big power supply whos transformers look like your
neighborhood power company substation. A demineralizer sucks out the
copper ions that happen when the tinest impurities in the distilled
water eat away at the copper, mostly making copper sulphate, a
conductor. In pure distilled water, copper doesn't even discolor
because distilled water is very stable.

So, all we need to do is take a sample of the "distilled" water you
bought and set the ohmmeter on its highest ohm range and put the two
test probes down into the water as close together as you can get them
without touching them to each other......and the meter should still
read INFINITY resistance. Anything less should not be put in a
battery.

I make about 12 gallons of distilled water in 24 hours with my
commercial distiller. Having had 4 kidney stones removed because
Charleston water is like a calcium bath, I said enough is enough.
Mine is made of porcelain with stainless tubing adn parts and latex
surgical hoses to connect the cooled water to the outside world,
totally inert. I have a 10,000 volt "Hipot Tester" used to test
electrical insulators to test its purity. The Hipot tester current
meter at 10KV moves barely perceptibly when two platinum wires are
inserted into a glass beaker of my water that are 4" long and 1"
apart. The local water test lab says I'm producing better distilled
water than they have. I gave them a gallon to use for their tests as
a thank you for the water testing.

I paid $18 for the distiller, brand new, from a surplus thrift shop
who had no idea what it was, the find of a lifetime of dumpster
diving. It's retail value is about $900. Distilled water costs about
25 cents per gallon at 8 cents per kilowatt hour of electricity.

If you ever saw what Charleston city swampwater looked like after I
boil away 24 gallons of H2O from it that's left in my boiler tank,
you'd NEVER drink from a drinking fountain or tap again....It's brown
like....well, you know....and huge calcium deposits coat everything in
the distiller, not my kidneys, thank you!

Oh, just for the RO lovers who've been convinced distilling takes out
valuable health minerals, it's all a lie. The human body CANNOT use
elemental metals to build strong bones and teeth and keep you healthy.
Water, in case you haven't peed lately, is the body's FLUSHING WATER
and the purer it is, the better it acts as a solvent to flush out the
junk from you. ORGANIC calcium, not elemental calcium builds bones.
No kidney stones in 5 years, now....(c;

If you taste that "distilled water" from the store, you'll notice it
tastes like metal dissolved in it. Distilling also distills anything
that can be boiled off of the original water....like xylene, benzene,
toulene, all the other enes polluting out water supply. Our water
tests pretty high, but below the "safe level" for benzene, which comes
from airplanes burning JP4 by the billions of gallons per year, I'm
told. (see my tagline). This can be easily removed by passing the
distilled water from the distiller through a column of activated
carbon (not charcoal which introduces pollution). Pure activated
carbon is really cheap on a 16 oz container in the fish department of
every WalMart in a plastic jug. I think a lifetime supply is about
$3. The activated carbon bonds, chemically, with the enes which
attach themselves, permanently to the carbon forming new molecules...
My system uses a nylon meat baster for a carbon column. Remove the
rubber squeeze bulb from the nylon body of the baster and cut a slot
in the end of the bulb. Push the pointy end of the baster through the
slot through the bulb and let it stick out about an inch below the
original bulb's open hole. This makes a plug that holds the baster
vertical perfectly in the top of a 5-gallon standard water jug that
fits my water cooler. The baster body has a little cone of coffee
filter paper pushed into the bottom end from the top to keep the
carbon from getting into the jug. Carbon is spooned into the baster
on top of this filter cone until it's within 1/2" of the top. The
water outlet hose is put in the top of the baster and she's ready to
filter a batch of "homebrew". The water that ends up in the jug, now
free of all distillable enes is DELICIOUS as well as perfect. The
metallic taste of the enes is completely gone because they have been
absorbed trickling down through the carbon. For sanitary purposes,
the filter cone and carbon are disposed of each time I make a batch
and fill my many bottles. Actually the carbon becomes so HOT from
this chemical reaction no virus or bacteria could survive. NYLON is
necessary because the heat cracked the glass one and melted the
plastic basters in less than 5 minutes! But, carbon is so cheap...why
take a chance?

Well, all my friends get battery water from here. Maybe I should
start marketing it!.....(c;

Hmm...custom battery water - $4.99/gallon
custom BOAT battery water - $18.95/gallon at West Marine....
That's about right, isn't it?
We'll put some pennant flags and a steamship's wheel on the marine
bottles to make it "Look Nautical"....It'll sell like hotcakes....

Which captain and boat magazines shall we get to endorse
it.......hmmm.......



On Sat, 27 Sep 2003 12:00:54 -0700, "Steve" wrote:

Thanks for all the tips on finding distilled water for my batteries.

However, I still remain sceptical regarding the quality of the
supermarket
"distilled water".

In one store I found it labeled as "steam distilled" water but no
reference
to the TDS (total desolved solids).

In another store I found two brands of "distilled" water. One label
stated
that it came for "Portland water system, charcoal filtered, Reverse
Osmoses
or steam distilation." I many not have the wording exactly, but that "OR"
worrys me. Else where on the label it states that it has less than 1ppm
solids.

The other brand only indicated that it came from a plant in New Hampshire
and gave a 800 number. Surprisingly, I called it at 1700 Pac. time and
got a
real live and helpful person. He had to go check when I as what process
was
used to produce the "distilled water". Without any prompting, as to what
answer I wanted to hear, he came back on the line and told me it was
Steam
Distilled. However, I neglected to ask if he know what the TDS was for
this
product. I got the impression that he was just an answering service for
the
distiller and had to call someone for all technical matters.

I purchased a couple gallons of the product that provided the info on TDS
(1ppm) but now I'm unsure of how high a TDS I should allow.. I have no
idea
where to have a sample tested of the other stuff..

Anyone have any idea of what would be exceptable for my $600+ battery
bank??
Perhaps I should call Trojan??

BTW. I had several gallon jugs of nice clean rain water. Well, after
sitting
on the shelf for 2 years, this water developed green algae bloom.. I
dumpted
it out but later, I realized I could have filtered it through coffee
filters.

Steve
s/v Good Intentions




Larry W4CSC

3600 planes with transponders are burning 8-10 million
gallons of kerosene per hour over the USA. R-12 car air
conditioners are responsible for the ozone hole, right?




Larry W4CSC

3600 planes with transponders are burning 8-10 million
gallons of kerosene per hour over the USA. R-12 car air
conditioners are responsible for the ozone hole, right?