#1 battery loses charge

[sunking]

Originally Posted by JohnnieB

About the closest to equalizing that people with the chargers typically used with golf carts can do is initiate a second (or more) charge cycle(s) after the first charge cycle terminates.

The way I did it was put pack on charge at night and then restart the charger the next morning.

Trick is what is the voltage and length of time? To do it right also requires a good lab quality hydrometer to see if the Specific Gravity has equalized or not.

[JohnnieB]

Originally Posted by sunking

Trick is what is the voltage and length of time? To do it right also requires a good lab quality hydrometer to see if the Specific Gravity has equalized or not.

Getting cart owners to charge their FLA batteries after each use, is difficult, getting them to equalize their battery cells properly, is next to impossible.

[radioman]

There is no external draw from the bank that would cause one battery position to consistently to be lower than the others. The one battery substituted has a different amount of charge because its internal resistance is different (probably lower) than the others. This is why replacing one new battery in a bank of old batteries is not recommended.

[kab69440]

I'd like to hear more about proper equalization. I'd say once a month or so I do the "soak charge" the day after a recharge. It seems to have worked pretty well so far. Could I be doing a better job?

[golfcartcare]

That battery is going bad. It doesn't matter what position the battery is. If you get a voltage reading around 36 volts at the carts charger plug the batteries are connected correctly. batteries that are taken care of should last approx. 7 or 8 years.

[sunking]

Originally Posted by kab69440

I'd like to hear more about proper equalization. I'd say once a month or so I do the "soak charge" the day after a recharge. It seems to have worked pretty well so far. Could I be doing a better job?

Start a thread. What I will say to wet your appetite is EQ is a controlled over charge, and it does do some damage in the form of plate corrosion and should only be performed as needed. Start a thread and I will go into more detail.

[remac]

Originally Posted by ncseadad

The same thing happens each time I switch the batteries around..The number 1 battery is always low....I have checked before and after riding and the batteries do not lose a charge just sitting. They will in time equalize but will not drop once that occurs.

I have done gravity checks several time on all batteries and it shows good to include the low number one battery...
.

Let's back up and clarify this post...
Just for confusion let's name the batteries; Tom, Dick, Harry, etc.
If I understand what you said above, you set up the pack with Tom as #1.
Then you ride and Tom goes low, so you recharge all the batteries.

Now, you move Dick to #1 and ride again, but this time Dick goes low,
(ok, I know there's gonna be a BUNCH of comments on this wording...)
BUT, Tom in his new position, stays up, is that what you are saying?

That it doesn't matter WHO is in the #1 position, they will go low?
Or did I misunderstand and you meant that Tom goes low,
no matter which position he is placed in in the pack?

[radioman]

Current flows from negative to positive. Battery #6 is the negative end and battery #1 is on the positive end. All the little electrons from battery #6 flows through four batteries to reach #1 and they are just worn out by the time they get to battery #1 and they just don't work as hard.

[JohnnieB]

Originally Posted by radioman

Current flows from negative to positive. Battery #6 is the negative end and battery #1 is on the positive end. All the little electrons from battery #6 flows through four batteries to reach #1 and they are just worn out by the time they get to battery #1 and they just don't work as hard.

Warning - Technical Content.

That is true using the electron current flow model and the opposite is true using the conventional current flow model.

Ever notice that the arrows on solid state device point the wrong way?
It is because they are based on conventional current flow theory rather than electron current flow theory.

Also, electrons don't travel very far or very fast, it is the effect of their electrical charge that moves at nearly the speed of light and over great distances.

The physical movement of electrons through a conductor (piece of wire or a battery) is akin to ping-pong balls in long a pipe fill of ping-pong balls whose inside diameter is the same as the outside diameter of the ping-pong ball.

Push a ping-pong ball in one end of the pipe and the last ping-pong ball at the distal end of the pipe is almost instantly forced out. The ping-pong ball pushed into the pipe only moved 1.57" (diameter of the ball), while the effect of pushing it into the pipe almost instantly occurs at the other end of the pipe, regardless of the length of the pipe.

[Volt_Ampere]

Current flow convention varies by profession. EE's always assume current flow is from Positive to Negative by convention. Electron movement is obviously the other way since they carry a negative charge. I'm an EE so I have been trained to think if current flow from Pos to Neg.