Battery Auto-fill Systems

[cartboy]

Originally Posted by cartboy

23 of the 63 carts I watered batteries on today had at least one valve failure/cell overflow.

That's pretty much normal.

I'm still at it, and still keeping records.

At the last battery servicing, 30 carts (out of 65) had at least one valve fail and cell overfill. Three carts had so many overfills that I placed them out of service.

Our "old" tech was here today (as opposed to the kid they are replacing him with), and he told me he is ordering new auto fills . . . the entire systems . . . for the entire fleet.

We've been using distilled water exclusively, so I don't give that much hope. We've had the same auto-fill valve failure problem since the beginning of them, 2008, and with the fleet of Club Cars I serviced, too.

[scottyb]

"The only reliable way to water batteries is to pull the caps off and fill each cell with distilled water to the appropriate level."

Period. Auto fill was invented for the fleet service industry. The failure rate was acceptable compared to the amount of time saved. Although at 23 out of 63, I doubt it > lol.

Bottom line is and always will be that these systems are inappropriate for private use due to high risk of battery damage due to over or under filling not to mention the occasional hydrogen gas explosion.

Have a nice day

[NCPW]

A headlamp to look down into the cells, a measuring cup with a good sized lip for pouring and 10 mins is what it takes.

Annoying but efficient.

Same way my wife describes me

[cartboy]

Originally Posted by NCPW

A headlamp to look down into the cells, a measuring cup with a good sized lip for pouring and 10 mins is what it takes.

Annoying but efficient.

Same way my wife describes me

Not that I would ever do it that way, but that would be 650 minutes for me. With auto-fills it takes me a couple or three hours.

Which goes back to the post above yours.

Before auto-fills, which arrived circa 2008, I used one of those hose-end attachments that you stuck into each cell, and it shut off when it detected the correct fluid level. It was not perfect, and it did involve removing and replacing caps, so . . . touching the fluid a bit.

A caveat . . . however you go about messing with batteries, wear goggles, an apron, and wash your hands immediately.

Your eyes, your clothes, and the skin on your hands will appreciate it.

I have some very ugly shorts, and some very ugly pictures of a tech, and our was sink, after he attempted to "clean" auto-fill valves. They did it once at our place, and after seeing what happened to their tech, ordered us to never mess with the auto-fills.

They have tried to make our auto-fills work by changing the length of the valve stems and by cleaning and replacing them.

Neither worked.

[NCPW]

I manage 1 cart. Not a fleet, thank goodness.

[cartboy]

Originally Posted by NCPW

I manage 1 cart.

Of those that I know who have one cart, which at one course I was at in FL was about 200, it's amazing how many don't know how to take care of it.

Battery water level, battery terminals, tire air pressure . . . .

[cartboy]

Originally Posted by cartboy

I'm still at it, and still keeping records.

At the last battery servicing, 30 carts (out of 65) had at least one valve fail and cell overfill. Three carts had so many overfills that I placed them out of service.

Our "old" tech was here today (as opposed to the kid they are replacing him with), and he told me he is ordering new auto fills . . . the entire systems . . . for the entire fleet.

We've been using distilled water exclusively, so I don't give that much hope. We've had the same auto-fill valve failure problem since the beginning of them, 2008, and with the fleet of Club Cars I serviced, too.

It's not getting any better. I serviced batteries again today and almost every cart had at least one auto-fill valve that did not close, and overfilled a cell. Less than ten carts out of 65 operated properly.

It wasted distilled water, took a lot more time, and will expedite battery failure.

[cartboy]

I noticed that our tech has replaced the entire auto-fill system on one cart. In the past it has always been "Flow-Rite" or the brand that was on the 2008 fleet, which I can't recall right now. It was always someone else's auto-fill put on Trojan or US Battery batteries.

The new one our tech put on is a Trojan Hydrolink, and he put it on US Battery batteries.

It worked perfectly . . . either because it's brand new, with no build-up on the valve stems . . . or because it's better. That's why I keep records . . . because you can only make educated judgments with records . . . or contemporaneous memos.

http://www.trojanbattery.com/pdf/Hyd...LowRes_000.pdf

https://flow-rite.com/sites/all/file...?itok=z7C6jofv

Time will tell, but the first thing that strikes me is that the Trojan design is "enclosed" on each battery, so that you cannot see the caps on each cell. If a valve did fail to close, I don't know how you would know which one failed.

The way our Flow-Rite system is, you can tell which one failed, so I record something like B2 C3.

[cartboy]

Here's an older thread expressing the same concerns about auto-fill systems. I keep trying to tell the powers-that-be that a system that is not operating properly is going to be costly, and maybe dangerous, but I might as well be talking to the wall.

http://www.buggiesgonewild.com/elect...ng-system.html

Just google "golf cart battery explodes" and see how important this is.



Why do we use them?

As someone said . . . convenience.

I told the guy who was helping me yesterday how this used to be done . . . take the caps off the cells and add distilled water with a device that detected the proper level, like the shut-off on the nozzle when you fill your car with gas.

He said, "One cell at a time?"

yup

[cartboy]

If you take care of a fleet, keep records.