Battery Care Check List

BATTERY CARE CHECK LIST

1. Keep battery clean and dry - dampness lets electric current leak away.

2. Keep vent plugs in place to stop dirt falling into cells.

3. A thin coating of petroleum jelly helps prevent corrosion of terminals and connections.

4. For topping up the cells, use either distilled water or clean rainwater preferably collected in glass or plastic. Never top up the battery with anything other than distilled water or rainwater. Do not top up battery with acid, unless on the advice of a battery technician.

5. Make sure that the positive and negative plates inside the battery are covered with electrolyte at all times. Do not overfill.

6. Avoid adding water to a battery just prior to taking a SG reading, as the reading will be misleading. If water has to be added, the battery should be charged for a while to mix it with the electrolyte thoroughly before the reading is taken.

Maintenance Schedule:

(i) Check SG of electrolyte:- 1 month

(ii) Check level of electrolyte top up if necessary:- 1 month

(iii) After boost charge, check cell voltages.
These should correspond to each other to within 0.05 volts:- 1 - 6 months

(iv) Check tightness of terminals and remove corrosion if necessary:- 6 months


DO NOT: top up battery cell with water when the battery is in a state of discharge. If the electrolyte level is very low, top up only to make sure the plates are covered and no more. The fluid level rises with the charge level, so if water is added when the batty is discharged, it may overflow on charging and lose electrolyte.

DO NOT: "tap" into part of your battery bank to obtain lower voltages for running lower voltage appliances. You will damage the battery bank by discharging some cells in relation to the rest of the battery bank.

DO NOT: lift batteries by the lugs or terminals. Batteries need to be adequately supported from underneath.

DO NOT: go near the batteries with an open flame or cigarette. You may cause the batteries to explode.

DO NOT: overcharge your battery bank to point of heating the cells up. This will cause inter-cell damage. It is acceptable to charge, to the point of electrolyte bubbling. You may need, to add water if the electrolyte level goes down.

DO NOT: install batteries in parallel if it can be avoided. To increase battery capacity you should endeavor to get a single bank of the required amp- hour capacity rather than smaller batteries hooked up in parallel. For example, six 2 volt cells connector series to provide 500 amp-hours of capacity is preferable to two 12 volt, 250 amp hour batteries connected in parallel.

Batteries in parallel should either be protected or electrically isolated through the use of diodes or fuses. This will ensure that if one battery fails due to a shorted cell, the current rushing from the good battery to the defective battery does not overload the conductor risking a fire. It will also save the charge and perhaps the life of the sound battery.

DO NOT: use alligator clips or other sprung jaw methods if possible, as sparking often occurs when they are removed or attached. Hydrogen gas is generated by batteries under charge which is very explosive in the presence of air. Sparking can ignite it. The resulting explosion will not only destroy the battery but also injure the person holding the alligator clips with flying debris and battery acid.