I put Noalux on my Batt terminals. Good or Bad?

[DaveTM]

Ok, so when I upgraded to ScottyB's 2ga. wires I thought I would do a good thing and cover the terminals\wires with lithium grease. As it turned out.....that was not a really bad thing.....but not a really good thing to do. It didn't put a complete STOP to any Ummmm....growing of the green stuff on selected terminals.

So, I had a "chat" with a union electrician, and he told me to go to Home Depot and pick up some Noalox:



.....and I did. So, I then took each and every battery terminal (8 6-Volt batteries.....so this isn't exactly what I wanted to do) and cleaned off the lithium, cleaned up the terminals so they were nice and shiny (wire brush) and applied the Noalox, then re-tighened everything.

Now, I purchased the Noalox that is for electrical aluminum to aluminum, electrical aluminum to copper, or aluminum conduit joints. (apparently like an anti-seize).

Then, after that (don't ask me why I didn't do this before ) I Googled this product and found neutral opinions about it, and good opinions about it, and horrible opinions about it. The worse one was a guy who applied it to an electrical work box...then took a propane torch (on super high) and lite the Noalox on fire and proceeded to tell how the "stuff" would burn for hours and hours. Which got me thinking ....Would this catch fire on my cart?

Then....I thought....likely no more than the plastic insulating wire coating itself.

But.....I thought I'd ask here. Should I now un-do what I just did?

OYE!!!

[DaveTM]

Well, I received an answer to my question via a licensed master electrician. (You know.....those guys who get the big bucks for touching wires 'n stuff.) He said the "stuff" I put on was just fine as Noalux is made for the connecting of two (2) different types of metal. So, I have just connected two different types of metal. One being copper, and the other being lead.

So....it's all good.

I post this so anyone who happen's to read or do a search, may come across it and at least have the opinion of one electrician.

[JohnnieB]

The trick is to keep the acid laden air found in the battery compartment for getting to the metal to metal connections, without using something that reacts adversely with the metals.

A lot of stuff works, but some stuff works better than other stuff. More correctly, it lasts longer, or is easier to apply, or less messy.

[scottyb]

I have seen Vaseline to spray paint used successfully

[DaveTM]

Well, from what the electrician had said, the Noalox that I applied....(and I applied it all over the copper terminal before I connected the terminal to the battery)....will dry on the copper terminal and essentially (before it did dry) work itself into the copper cracks of the copper terminal. This will then prevent the acid (as JohnnieB mentioned) from "seeping" into the copper and reacting with the metal to form corrosion. I assume a lot of acid is "spit out" of the batteries when they are recharged and the air in the battery compartment becomes more of an acid chamber.

Now...if I could just capture that and offer it as a drink to some of my relatives.......

[JohnnieB]

Whenever you run an electrical current through water (with some impurities since pure water is non-conductive), electrolysis occurs and Hydrogen and Oxygen gases are formed. These gases are the bubbles you see when the battery is "Gassing" while charging.

Since the Hydrogen gas and Oxygen gas bubble up through a liquid, they carry a very minute quantity of the liquid with them when they escape into the air, so they are "wet" gasses and the wetness is about a 30% mixture of H2SO4 and H2O.

Since the wet gases cause corrosion, the connections must be air-tight.

[cgtech]

Sweet, a way to explain "why" the vapors of "only" hydrogen & oxygen are corrosive. Never had a good way to explain that to customers or OEMs. (besides all that liquid/dirt/corrosion/green crap everywhere). The tiny "splatters" are easy to explain (batteries held in "gassing" range for extended periods of time), but why clean battery tops still can corrode terminals are harder to explain. RXV wire harnesses are affected bad (most are neglect, but some dont show "nasty" neglect signs while small signal wires have "little fuzzy crystals" growing on the insulation).

[JohnnieB]

Originally Posted by cgtech

Sweet, a way to explain "why" the vapors of "only" hydrogen & oxygen are corrosive. Never had a good way to explain that to customers or OEMs. (besides all that liquid/dirt/corrosion/green crap everywhere). The tiny "splatters" are easy to explain (batteries held in "gassing" range for extended periods of time), but why clean battery tops still can corrode terminals are harder to explain. RXV wire harnesses are affected bad (most are neglect, but some dont show "nasty" neglect signs while small signal wires have "little fuzzy crystals" growing on the insulation).

Air alone is corrosive and is more corrosive near big cities.

I cannot count the all things I have fixed just by re-seating boards and unplugging/re-plugging connectors.

In a nutshell, if air can get to a connection, it is going to corrode.

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The wet gasses get trapped under the seat when the cart isn't moving. I block the seat open a few inches with a short piece of 2X4 when I know my cart is going to be sitting for a while.

As for the clean battery tops, measure from the negative battery terminal to the clean, dry top with a DVM and see how much voltage you get.

Hint: There are no perfect insulators, so there will be some current flow and you'll get a voltage. If you know the input impedance of the DVM you can use Ohms law to figured out what the resistance of the battery case is.

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Batteries can also produce some gasses other than Hydrogen and Oxygen. Oxygen bubbling through Sulfuric acid that has an electrical current flowing though it, will produce a little Sulfur Dioxide, which gives us the rotten egg smell and Hydrogen bubbling through Sulfuric acid with an electrical current flowing through it, will produce minute amounts of Hydrogen Sulfide, which is toxic and very corrosive, and also smells like rotten eggs.

Fortunately, very little of these gasses are generated.

[DaveTM]

Rotton egg smell?....Ahhhh....the sweet aroma of shooting a black powder flintlock rifle!!! The only "downside" is it takes about an hour to shoot ten shots!!! Now, imagine your in the year 1835.....your in Wyoming with your wife and two kids. You have 4 horses, a mule, and half a dozen chickens.....and here come a dozen or so Lakota Indian's. And they aren't coming to celebrate your birthday. How fast can you load and shoot?

Never as fast as they can load and shoot their' bows.