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So today I woke up to a fairly hardy DOD (no not more than 50%) and thought, "I need to check the water in the batteries". I have been gone several days, and have not looked at water levels in the cells in a few weeks. So I stroll out to the battery box and popped a few tops. Well ... you see where this is going. The plates were NOT exposed, but the 12 cells looked pretty low. In fact, the lowest I had seen them - ever. So I quickly grab the watering can and top all 12 cells off.
Charging is now up to about 60% SOC, And the system has not gotten to a gassing voltage. Then I remembered something about NOT fully watering until AFTER the charge cycle. Look it up on Trojan's battery maintenance page. Sure enough, I did it wrong. And now the risks is that the batteries are over filled and may over flow leaving a nice acidy mess all over things.
Here is the only thing I could think to do. Since gassing, "boiling", mixing had not started yet, I figure most of the water I added is still sitting on top, so the top is mostly water still. So using my hydro syringe, I draw out about equal parts from the top of each of the 12 cells. I put a line on the glass tube of the hydro and got it close with each draw. I placed this "excess" water/acid solution in a glass wine bottle that had been washed, and then rinsed with distilled water ... water from the same container as the water I filled the batteries from earlier. As suspected, the SG of the solution in the bottle from all 12 cells is very very low.
My thinking at this point is to monitor the levels until fully charged, removing more water if necessary before over fill occurs. Then, as the batteries need water in the future, use the solution from the glass wine bottle first in equal parts into all 12 cells until that water is all back in the batteries before using any more distilled water.
Does that seem a good solution to an other wise bad mistake?
Charging is now up to about 60% SOC, And the system has not gotten to a gassing voltage. Then I remembered something about NOT fully watering until AFTER the charge cycle. Look it up on Trojan's battery maintenance page. Sure enough, I did it wrong. And now the risks is that the batteries are over filled and may over flow leaving a nice acidy mess all over things.
Here is the only thing I could think to do. Since gassing, "boiling", mixing had not started yet, I figure most of the water I added is still sitting on top, so the top is mostly water still. So using my hydro syringe, I draw out about equal parts from the top of each of the 12 cells. I put a line on the glass tube of the hydro and got it close with each draw. I placed this "excess" water/acid solution in a glass wine bottle that had been washed, and then rinsed with distilled water ... water from the same container as the water I filled the batteries from earlier. As suspected, the SG of the solution in the bottle from all 12 cells is very very low.
My thinking at this point is to monitor the levels until fully charged, removing more water if necessary before over fill occurs. Then, as the batteries need water in the future, use the solution from the glass wine bottle first in equal parts into all 12 cells until that water is all back in the batteries before using any more distilled water.
Does that seem a good solution to an other wise bad mistake?
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