Watering new batteries

[BigOL3]

OK, naturally I already knew to keep water ABOVE the lead plates ...... DUH What I am not sure of is how much is TOO much water. For lack of a better term, each cell hole has what I will call a 'sleeve', going down into each cell, that the caps fit into. These sleeves has 2 grooves that go up about 3/4 the length of the sleeve. Using that as a guide, should water stop at the bottom of the sleeve, half way up the sleeve, or up to the top of the groove?

[scottyb]

I go anywhere from 1/4" above the plates to the bottom of the sleeve so there is room for expansion

[BigOL3]

Sounds good!

[cgtech]

If the water is touching the "sleeve" at any point during the charge cycle, battery messes are sure to follow.

[Fairtax4me]

Older batteries that use more water I fill until the water just touches the sleeve.
New batteries, 1/4 - 1/2” above the plates.

Never fill higher than the top of groove in the sleeve. Gassing occurs during use and during charging and will build enough pressure in the case to push the acid out through the cap.

[NoleFan4Ever]

I keep 1/4" above the plates and no more than 1/2". This helps keep acid mist down when your batteries are at their highest voltage and a lot of reaction in the cells....

[ThreeCW]

Attached are the US Battery and Trojan fill recommendations ... they both pretty much say the same thing.

US Battery - Fill Line.jpg Trojan Electrolyte Level.JPG

If your batteries are misting, I found that the Water Miser Battery Vent Caps really helped my old US Batteries, which leaked (misted) no matter how low you kept the water levels. See: http://www.buggiesgonewild.com/elect...tery-caps.html

On my new batteries, I took off the Trojan caps and installed the Water Misers from my old batteries. They are still working fine for me. I prefer to run my water levels to the recommended height (the MAX line on my Trojans) to give more "operating time" between fills. My new Trojans don't tend to use much water ... not sure if that is due to the batteries being new or because of the Water Miser caps, which are also supposed to reduce water consumption too.

Water Miser Battery-Vent-Cap-Cut-Away.jpg IMG_7672.jpg

[dundeebarnbuggy]

Wow, you need to add water to your brand new batts?

[ThreeCW]

Originally Posted by dundeebarnbuggy

Wow, you need to add water to your brand new batts?

Dundee ... not sure if you asked in jest or not , so here goes

I filled by new Trojan T125's (8 pieces of 6 volt batteries) after charge #3.

And 27 charges later (3 months and 8.6 hours of use - charging after 20 minutes of use on average), I refilled the batteries to the MAX line again using 2.25 litres of reverse osmosis water. That works out to 94 ml/cell = 3.2 US ounces/cell and a calculated drop in electrolyte level of 1/4".

Not sure if this is typical water use or not as this is my first new set of batteries. The light water usage (IMHO) could be due to light use, a soft break in (tried to stay under 100 amps ... keeping a light foot), cool temperatures (typcially 30 to 75 deg F in this time period) and having Water Miser battery caps on.

[BigOL3]

Originally Posted by dundeebarnbuggy

Wow, you need to add water to your brand new batts?

Not sure if it was truly NEEDED, but did so to be on safe side, as I was not sure. Looking in to the lead plates it was kinda hard to tell exactly how much water was above the plates. As water entered the battery, the ripple effect did make it easier to tell the depth. I filled them up close/some up to the bottom of sleeve ..... probably a little too full. This was the 5th charge.