Battery top up
Please note: It is good practice to remove the -ve (or earth) terminal first then the +ve terminal (red), then when re-fitting, connect the +ve (red) then the -ve (blue)
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Battery locker is located on the near side. The electrolyte level is difficult to see on the side of the battery.
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The battery is held in place with a strap, it is a tight fit in there, 85 amp hour capacity. looks fairly new.
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The terminals have these lever connections, simply push up to release, then undid the holding strap.
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Once on the floor, unscrew the vent plugs to each cell.
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Cells needed topping up, the electrolyte only just covered some of them.
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Using de-ionised water to fill to the correct level, re-fitted the vent plugs and gave the top of the battery a wipe, before replacing in the locker.
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As mentioned above the level of the electrolyte on the side of the battery is hard to see, so I took it out of the locker to look at it properly. The battery is approximately 2years old (December 2007)and I have been meaning to do this all year.
Update:
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After a couple of weeks I took the battery out again and took the vent plugs out to check the electrolyte with a tester I have.
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This is the tester,it measures the density of the electrolyte, hence the state of charge. |
The Results:
| Cell Readings obtained |
| 1- 1.25 |
| 2- 1.14 |
| 3- 1.20 |
| 4- 1.23 |
| 5- 1.18 |
| 6- 1.25 |
What the Electrolyte Density values mean:
| 1.28 - battery fully charged |
| 1.21 - battery half charged |
| 1.14 - battery discharged |
Conclusion:
The battery was topped up a couple of weeks ago, then put on the EHU so that the onboard 12volt charger would charge it.
The readings show that a couple of the cells (2 & 5) are discharged, while the others are half charged(the expectation is they would all read approximately the same).
There may be a problem, will have to monitor it.
Update; 9th May 2009. Everytime I went to work on the caravan, the first thing I would do is take a voltmeter reading of the battery before connecting the mains. This tells me the state of charge and is a good indicator of the condition of the battery and of course if it suddenly drops, the battery is on the way out.
Below are the readings;
Page Created 22nd December 2007/Updated 9th May 2009
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