adding water to batteries

[Volt_Ampere]

Bottled water and Distilled water are not even close to the same! Bottled water contains minerals and impurities. Try tasting distilled water. It does not taste good!

[yurtle]

Good to know. It's probably not in contact long enough to dissolve much before it drips off.

[radioman]

I use rain water when available. Melted snow would be ok too I guess.

[scottyb]

You got 700.00 worth of batteries that need what, 2-3 gallons of water a year? That water is what, $2-3.00 a gallon.
I wouldn't mess around melting snow or collecting rain when it's so darn cheap, safe, and easy to tell the wife to pick it up at the grocery store?

[cgtech]

Originally Posted by scottyb

You got 700.00 worth of batteries that need what, 2-3 gallons of water a year? That water is what, $2-3.00 a gallon.
I wouldn't mess around melting snow or collecting rain when it's so darn cheap, safe, and easy to tell the wife to pick it up at the grocery store?

I love where this thread has turned. Yeah, im gonna buy $700 worth of batteries, but i sure as he** wont be tricked into buying $6 worth of water to feed them. Talk about tripping over a big 'ol stack of quarters to pick up a penny!

[radioman]

I believe rain water has less impurities than commonly available distilled water. I measured 500,000 ohms with a Simpson 260® between two meter probes two inches apart stuck in a cup of Family Dollar® distilled water. My deep well water and a sample of Nestles pure life® bottled water each separately measured 22,000 ohms when substituted with Family Dollar® distilled water. I am out of rain water but I will check it next rain. I measure daily rainfall and just for the heck of it save the water when I empty it to water my golf cart batteries.

[yurtle]

Not meaning to argue, but distilled water should have no impurities, besides volatiles - things that evaporate at or below water's boiling point. Depending on the source used for distillation, there can be VOCs present. Water is poorly understood by most folks. DI water is the best, but most folks don't have access.

I got nine years to the month, out of my last battery pack, but our water source is too soft (low DS) so we have (had, retired) to add DS to prevent leaching of copper and lead into the water.

Funny that in my second to last career, we were responsible for water up to the meter, but for quality, the EPA made us responsible for what came out of the tap, so lead solder needed harder water to not be dissolved quite as easily as a more aggressive water (soft) would allow.

That's why a whole house water softener with metal pipes and fixtures, is a BAD idea.

[jdunmyer]

Radioman and VoltAmpere,
I don't think anyone was suggesting using "bottled water" for use in our batteries. Much of that will have as much or more mineral content than city or well water. We're talking distilled water, usually sold by the gallon in grocery stores for use in things like steam irons. Distilled water should have a very low concentration of minerals and other contaminants, even the grocery store stuff. Remember, that "distilled water" probably doesn't have to meet any real standards or tests, it could be boiled in metal tanks and condensed in car radiators, so is no more pure than from my dehumidifier.

Rain water and the condensate from a dehumidifier should have near-zero concentrations of the sorts of contaminants that harm batteries: minerals and metals. A bit of airborne dust, etc. won't hurt our batteries.

Here's a lot more detail on distilled water: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distilled_water Note that it is NOT recommended to drink only distilled water, as your body needs some of the stuff that distilling removes. Note also that deionized water is preferred in industry because it's cheaper, not necessarily because it's as pure as distilled.

[JohnnieB]

Originally Posted by yurtle

Not meaning to argue, but distilled water should have no impurities, besides volatiles - things that evaporate at or below water's boiling point. Depending on the source used for distillation, there can be VOCs present. Water is poorly understood by most folks. DI water is the best, but most folks don't have access.

I got nine years to the month, out of my last battery pack, but our water source is too soft (low DS) so we have (had, retired) to add DS to prevent leaching of copper and lead into the water.

Funny that in my second to last career, we were responsible for water up to the meter, but for quality, the EPA made us responsible for what came out of the tap, so lead solder needed harder water to not be dissolved quite as easily as a more aggressive water (soft) would allow.

That's why a whole house water softener with metal pipes and fixtures, is a BAD idea.

What is best, depends on the application, as does what is good enough.

The most common ways of purifying water are, Distillation, De-Ionization and Reverse Osmosis. None of them are perfect, so to get Ultra-Pure water (Optically clear and Pathogen free with a Resistivity of >18 MΩ/Cm), two or more of them are used.

The typical measurement cell for measuring water resistivity (or conductivity) is composed of two electrodes measuring 1Cm x 1Cm (IE: 1 CM²), spaced 1 Cm apart. For monitoring and alarms, the electrodes are typically fed AC current to avoid electroplating.

The local city water contains about 3.5% dissolved solids by weight (IE: 1 liter weighs 1035 grams), so the water fed to the chemistry analyzers in the clinical lab in the hospital I was the Director of Clinical Engineering at, went through a three stage purification process. First, all water used in the hospital went through an industrial water softener (Roughly the same as home units except for the size of the resin beds.), next it went through DI columns located close to the lab to get rid of the copper and other ions it picked up from the copper plumbing and then it went through a RO system and finally it was connected to the analyzers via plastic plumbing designed to transport highly pure water. The water was monitored for conductivity and turbidity (Optical clarity) at the output or the RO system and again by the analyzers themselves before being used.

The water wasn't anywhere near Ultra-Pure, but it didn't have to be. It is the same for water that is added to cart batteries. It doesn't have to be perfect, just pure enough for the application and the distilled water sold by the gallon in grocery stores most likely meets the requirements, while drinking water (bottled or from the tap at home) may not, perhaps even probably not.

I pretty sure the tap water at my house would kill my batteries, so a couple times a year, I pick up a jug of distilled water while grocery shopping to protect my investment in batteries.

[scottyb]

Oh NO .........wait.
Okay I'm ready to read the stuff above.