new batts, power wise, chemical smell???

[ezgoin92]

dropped in a new set of 6v batts today. checked the initial pack voltage and it was about 47V (should have written its specs down better). tossed it on the 36v powerwise charger to top off the batts and its meter was showing about 14-15 amps. after several hours the charger was still chugging along and I started to smell a bit of a chemical smell in the garage. not really pungent but certainly notable. I unplugged it (amp meter was about 4 or 5 amps at the time) and checked the batts. five ranged 8.0 to 8.1 and one was 7.8V. After about 30-40 min of the pack resting unplugged all batts were pretty much 7.8V. My questions are: at about what amp or voltage reading should I expect the powerwise to shut off and during a first charge should I anticipate a chemical smell and should I be venting the caps??? A little paranoid about the charger turning off, with my old batts it hasn't turned off on its own in a while. If there is any other questions I should have asked for a powerwise charger or initial pack charge feel free to send it thanks

[teecro]

Your post is confusing, what voltage is the cart 36 or 48 volts?

New batteries will sometimes smell a bit the first few times they are charged and could take upwards of 16 hours to fully charge. A 36 volt charger may output as much as 49 volts and a 48 volt charger may output as high as 65 volts so high voltages seen during the charge process can be deceiving.

You should not be venting the caps but should be charging in a well vented location.

[ezgoin92]

Thanks, its a 36v pack

[teecro]

If a 36 volt then you were getting pretty close to the cut off voltage but from what you wrote you've got one battery that is not yet balanced voltage wize with the rest of the pack. Plug in your charger again and as long as the amp meter keeps dropping off let it charge, your batteries should equalize voltage wize to one another within .01 of a volt .02 at the most....

[JohnnieB]

There are several flavors of PowerWise chargers. If you have the legacy type shown in the first attachment below, it will have the charge profile shown in the second attachment.

Since you mentioned an ammeter on the charger, it is a legacy type. Either the one shown below or a PW-II.

The rotten egg smell is normal, but is more prominent with some battery packs than others.

The initial charge of new batteries can take up to 20 hours or so.

Reconnect the charger and let it continue charging until is shuts off automatically.

Let the batteries rest (IE: neither charge or discharge) for about 12 hours and then measure the pack voltage as well as the individual battery voltages.

If you batteries are made by Trojan or clones, the pack voltage out to be at least 38.2V and the individual batteries 6.37V and all six ought to be within 0.1V of each other.

If the voltage between batteries is greater than 0.1V, reconnect the charger and let it run until it shuts off automatically again. Repeat as required until pack is equalized.