these batterys any good?

[ditchcrawler]

23 minutes ago, nicknorman said:

It’s water from which ions (other than hydroxyl ions) have been removed by chemical process. I suppose it may or may not be more organically pure than distilled, but the point is that it is the ions of eg calcium that are bad for a battery. A little bit of mushed up organic matter doesn’t really matter much.

 

So would that be any worse than what came of the evaporator plate of a dehumidifier. A long time ado when I worked for Birdseye foods we had deionisers to fill the forklift batteries and used gallons of it, it was basically just a meter to measure the water flow and a cylinder of resin like you get in a water softener, but after X gallons they went back for recharge.

[ditchcrawler]

Just now, nicknorman said:

I guess your turbines were not running at any sort of time limited contingency rating and thus the torque/temperature relationship was less critical. As were helicopter engines nearly all the time, but we had to cater for the engine failure situation where the remaining engine had to be able to wind up to its 30 second and 2 minute ratings without melting!

I always found it unnerving when the pilot on the S61 would wind one engine back and wind the other up. Sometimes we would get trainees out with a single pilot, maybe 4 at a time, he would drop three off and practice Helideck landings, they would stand around joking until the first came down to send the second up  not looking quite so jolly saying " he turned the bloody engine off as I was coming in"

[Iain_S]

3 hours ago, ditchcrawler said:

A lot of people talk about contamination from the evaporator plates (have I got the right one? Condenser plate) but I wonder how bit a problem that actually is.

On one of our dehumidifiers , the condensing one, there is a definite metallic taste to the water it produces. The condenser coil also gats covered in dust fairly quickly when the thing is in use. We got a smaller absorption one, and the water from that tastes like distilled or de-ionised, i.e. of not a lot.

[blackrose]

2 hours ago, nicknorman said:

 

I’m with Col. Water from a dehumidifier is effectively distilled, and contains contaminants that were in the air (particles of smoke, dust, human skin cells etc etc). By the same token if you brew up some sugar and yeast to make beer-strength alcohol, and then distill it once, you don’t get 100% alcohol or anything near. So distilled water might be better than tap water, but not much. Deionised water is dirt cheap so why not just use it?

 

Interesting. I was always under the impression that it was the other way around and distilled was better than deionised for batteries. Have I got that wrong then? The stuff in using now is lab quality distilled which comes with a certificate of purity. Cost about 10 quid for a gallon but after wrecking my last set of batteries that seems like a small price to pay.

Edited May 28, 2021 by blackrose

[jenevers]

So after all these years are we now saying that the distilled water we buy from supermarkets, with pictures of car batteries and domestic irons on the labels, isn’t the right stuff to be using in our batteries?

[Sir Nibble]

17 hours ago, Bee said:

Well the description on E bay sounds like a load of waffle but big heavy ones tend to have a lot more chemistry in them than dimensionally smaller and cheaper lighter ones. These look like the 'Hankook' ones I am using at the moment. I am not expecting a long life from them so I won't be disappointed when they give up. I think of them like car tyres these days, a couple of years or so and they are getting a bit weary, time for another couple of budget tyres or batteries.

I sold those batteries for a few years. Never had any problems.

[Murflynn]

there are so many batteries marketed as "sealed - no maintenance".  However in many cases it is a simple matter to pop off the cover and then you can check the levels and maintain them in the normal manner.   This particular range of batteries appears to have a cover that can probably be levered off.   I have done just that with some of my batteries (electric powered boat - heavy cycling when travelling).  It gives peace of mind when you can check the levels.

[ditchcrawler]

17 hours ago, blackrose said:

 

Interesting. I was always under the impression that it was the other way around and distilled was better than deionised for batteries. Have I got that wrong then? The stuff in using now is lab quality distilled which comes with a certificate of purity. Cost about 10 quid for a gallon but after wrecking my last set of batteries that seems like a small price to pay.

I think we are discussing home made distilled water with possible contamination and professionally produced pure distilled water, saying the deionised is better than home made distilled.

[Midnight]

On 26/05/2021 at 18:22, crosser said:

need to replace my 4 batterys and found these..  anyone know if there any good? thanks

 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/393336118283

 

https://www.alpha-batteries.co.uk/
Good prices, good advice

[Machpoint005]

On 28/05/2021 at 13:11, Col_T said:

 

Just for clarity, deionised water is not the same thing as distilled water.

 

Indeed it isn't, but distilled water is absolutely fine for topping up a battery. 

 

My old man's distilled water was made in a laboratory, not at home!

On 29/05/2021 at 07:40, jenevers said:

So after all these years are we now saying that the distilled water we buy from supermarkets, with pictures of car batteries and domestic irons on the labels, isn’t the right stuff to be using in our batteries?

Some are saying that. I suspect that deionised water is posher, more expensive and much more profitable for the supplier. I could be wrong...

[Alan de Enfield]

7 minutes ago, Machpoint005 said:

My old man's distilled water was made in a laboratory, not at home!

 

Did he clean out the pipes after making his moonshine ?

[ditchcrawler]

1 hour ago, Machpoint005 said:

 

Indeed it isn't, but distilled water is absolutely fine for topping up a battery. 

 

My old man's distilled water was made in a laboratory, not at home!

Some are saying that. I suspect that deionised water is posher, more expensive and much more profitable for the supplier. I could be wrong...

I can't remember seeing distilled water for sale in the past 10 years at least, cost wise I would say its the other way round.

 

You can make your own for fifty quid https://vevor.co.uk/products/4l-pure-water-distiller-1l-h-water-purifier-filter-dental-medical-home-220v-uk

Edited May 31, 2021 by ditchcrawler

[bizzard]

Years ago a friend of mine who worked at the GPO telephones research place in Hendon told me that the difference between using tap water and distilled water in they're huge battery banks was so tiny on battery life that distilled water wasn't worth bothering with.  I collect rain water at night and filter it through an old T shirt for batteries, seems to be fine, I only collect it when the wind blows from the north, north west or north east, never from any southerly direction which would be seriousely contaminated with continental crap and polution and frogs, been doing it for years.

Edited May 31, 2021 by bizzard

[ditchcrawler]

10 hours ago, bizzard said:

Years ago a friend of mine who worked at the GPO telephones research place in Hendon told me that the difference between using tap water and distilled water in they're huge battery banks was so tiny on battery life that distilled water wasn't worth bothering with.  I collect rain water at night and filter it through an old T shirt for batteries, seems to be fine, I only collect it when the wind blows from the north, north west or north east, never from any southerly direction which would be seriousely contaminated with continental crap and polution and frogs, been doing it for years.

My college lecturer told me the same thing when I was an apprentice,  He also told me how they scraped the plates wit a wooden scraper. Bit bigger batteries than we use on our boats.

 

[cuthound]

On 31/05/2021 at 10:56, bizzard said:

Years ago a friend of mine who worked at the GPO telephones research place in Hendon told me that the difference between using tap water and distilled water in they're huge battery banks was so tiny on battery life that distilled water wasn't worth bothering with.  I collect rain water at night and filter it through an old T shirt for batteries, seems to be fine, I only collect it when the wind blows from the north, north west or north east, never from any southerly direction which would be seriousely contaminated with continental crap and polution and frogs, been doing it for years.

 

When I worked on the tools for BT, they used Permutit de-ionising machines to make the top up water.

 

Regenerating them was fun, dolled up to the eyes in PPE, pouring concentrated hydrochloric acid (which smoked and obscured your vision) and then calcium carbonate into the them.

 

However since 1980 BT has used VRSLA (AGM) batteries because the shorter life is more than offset by the labour savings.

 

Tap water used occasionally wont damage batteries, but will shorten their lives as it causes growths between the plates, with eventual resultant short circuits.

Edited June 6, 2021 by cuthound
Spillung & clarification

[Nightwatch]

Anyone mention ABS for batteries? If not, I am mentioning them now.

[ditchcrawler]

10 hours ago, cuthound said:

 

When I worked on the tools for BT, they used Permutit de-ionising machines to make the top up water.

 

Regenerating them was fun, dolled up to the eyes in PPE, pouring concentrated hydrochloric acid (which smoked and obscured your vision) and then calcium carbonate into the them.

 

However since 1980 BT has used VRSLA (AGM) batteries because the shorter life is more than offset by the labour savings.

 

Tap water used occasionally wont damage batteries, but will shorten their lives as it causes growths between the plates, with eventual resultant short circuits.

We use to have service exchange on the resin bottles, one out, one in. and picked up at the end of the week. We had a large fleet of electric forklifts to work inside the factory so I never saw them regenerated.

[rogerc]

i use distilled water from the tumble dryer -important to filter the fluff out and dont have any problems with battery life