Newbie Battery Water Questions

[bama006]

I bought a 2017 Yamaha Drive2 DC 48V a couple months ago. Maybe drive it a couple miles every few days. Has Trojan batteries. I usually charge it every night after use. I've been checking the battery water levels every couple weeks. The water levels never seem to go down. Got a few questions:

1. Each battery has a water level indicator. Is it safe to rely on that or should I be opening each battery every week or so to check it?

2. Is it normal to not have to add water to these after 2 months? Understood it depends on use but just wondering why the level never seems to drop.

3. These Trojan batteries have the HydroLink system installed. Is this really the recommended way of adding water? If so I was looking at getting this from Amazon unless someone has a better suggestion. https://www.amazon.com/Flow-Rite-Sup.../dp/B0066D3SNQ

Any other suggestions?

[ThreeCW]

Have a look at this recent thread ... it answers most of your questions.

https://www.buggiesgonewild.com/showthread.php?t=164870

In short, the auto fill systems are designed for golf courses that look after a large number of carts, where manually filling batteries is too time consuming on 50 or so carts.

The general advise you will find on this forum is for a single cart, manually fill your batteries and ditch the auto fill system.

Water use is a function of many factors such as depth of discharge, ambient temperature, age of batteries, etc. I live in a cooler climate and don't put a lot of hours on my cart and my batteries are only 2 years old ... so I don't use much battery water.

I would advise to get rid of the auto fill, replace with conventional battery caps and check every 10 hours of carts use or so to start with. Adjust the frequency according to what you see for water use. NEVER let the battery fluid level get so low that the plates are exposed ... that is very hard on batteries and can result in a shortened life and premature failures.

See attached the photo of my fill system:

[bama006]

Thank you! I was wondering why you recommended replacing with conventional caps, then I saw in the other thread how hydrogen gas can cause a chain fire across the batteries. Off to buy new caps now...

[bama006]

Last question - any thoughts on these as a replacement? https://www.flowsystemsusa.com/water...caAsNREALw_wcB

[bama006]

Originally Posted by bama006

Last question - any thoughts on these as a replacement? https://www.flowsystemsusa.com/water...caAsNREALw_wcB

Never mind. I see lots of positive feedback out there on these. Think I'll order them. Thanks again.

[ThreeCW]

Here is my review of the Water Miser Battery Caps you are looking to order.

https://www.buggiesgonewild.com/showthread.php?t=138678

I am still loving them.

These Water Miser Caps come in 3 heights. I suggest getting the maximum height that fits in your battery compartment. I had sufficient room so went with the Extended Height version (1.455").

[gable74]

I have (4) 12v T-1275 Trojans. Do they make them for these as well?

[ThreeCW]

This system uses one cap per cell. The caps fit 6 v, 8 v and 12 volt batteries. Any combination of 48 volts batteries will require 24 caps total.