Back From The Dead - Batteries

[LowGear]

I just bought a dead golf car and towed it home.  What should I do to try and resurrect the battery bank?

Casey

[Tom Reed]

First remove the caps from the cells and carefully look inside and tell us what you see.

[Thob]

Are you cornering the market on golf carts on your island paradise?

Add enough distilled water to cover the plates, but don't try to fill the cells all the way.  Then charge them, then measure specific gravity in each cell.  If you can't measure the specific gravity, voltage measurements will have to do. You might make sure there are no loads on the batteries, such as from a stuck switch, brake light always on, etc.  Also check for loose connections on the batteries.  How long have the batteries been dead?  If they just died, you might get them back.  If it's been setting for years with dead batteries, then it's definitely a trip to the battery store.  Let us know what you find!

[LowGear]

OK!

No, I'm not cornering the market.  There are a lot of used cars here on the island.  Probably like most other golf intense areas such as Arizona and Florida (retirement center intensity is only an illusion).

I compete with a neighbor on who is going to die with the most toys.  He's nuts.  I like machines.  I'm sure most of you know the difference.  His Club Car is a 36 volter and mine is a 48.  (Didn't there used to be a demon smiley face?)  Of course we want each others.  He wants mine because 48 is better than 36 and me because my electric Polaris "Frankie" is also 36 Volts. 

We (my wife did the work as it was her 45th wedding anniversary present) - (can you believe her mother referred to me as "The Cheap Bastard") discovered some of the plates were visible.  It seems another gallon of distilled water is on the shopping list.  It wasn't pretty in there.  At $90 a pop we're going to give them a chance to come back to life - Yup, that's $540.

I'll post an update in a day or two.  An opportunity to buy another tool.  Fantastic.

Casey

[Tom Reed]

White crystals or brown gook? If it is white crystals, a good equalize charge may restore them to a useful state of charge. If not then get a desulfator and give it a try.

[LowGear]

You didn't give the brownish pathology?

Casey

[Tom Reed]

You didn't tell us what you saw. 

[LowGear]

What we saw:

Some of the plates were under water and were lead gray.

Some of the plates were not under water but were still lead gray.

Most have a sparkalie look to them.  Tinsie crystals?

None had anything growing off them.

Anything special to look for in the hydrometer?

Casey

[Tom Reed]

Looks to me like they are worth a try to restore them. The brown gook would be plate material from decomposing plates.

[Thob]

I bought my hydrometer from Napa.  This one:

http://napaonline.com/Catalog/Result.aspx?Ntt%3d700-1145%26Ntk%3dKeyword%26Nty%3d1%26Dn%3d0%26D%3d700-1145%26Dk%3d1%26Dp%3d3%26N%3d0

It has a built in thermometer, which is calibrated in the amount to add/subtract from the specific gravity to compensate for temperature.  So you don't need a table or memorize how much to add for each degree.  The tube is also marked in red/green areas to help with the "quick look".

I was able to quickly locate a dead cell in a battery just by comparing the SG from one cell to the next.  The bad cell was way in the red, the others were all green.  This was on a car battery that the battery tester at the store said was a good battery.

Trojan has a table here:

http://www.trojanbattery.com/BatteryMaintenance/Testing.aspx

along with good advice on how to test a battery with either voltage measurements or SG.  They also have a bunch of interesting looking videos on their site.

You'll want to be sure to charge the batteries after you add water; if you try to read SG just after adding water, it will probably read very low.

[LowGear]

Thanks,

$11 is in my price point.

Casey

[mobile_bob]

i bought the same hydrometer, and find it to be of acceptable quality

the one i had that another guy bought several of and gave me one, looked good
but dribbled so badly it was almost impossible to get the float to settle down long
enough to get an accurate reading.

i use rubber gloves and put a finger over the end of the hydrometer just as i raise it out
of a cell, this makes it much easier to get a quick accurate reading without dripping all over the place.

the napa hydrometer drips just a bit, but not bad, however i don't like drips so i use gloves, which is a good idea anyway when messing around batteries.

all in all, i like the napa unit, it is easy to read, the thermometer is accurate and easy to calculate the temp compensation.

+1 for the napa hydrometer, for the money an acceptably good unit at an affordable price.

bob g