Bubbling battery
So from my posts about a power supply charger Mexicowanderer and I think Ninerbikes stated when charging at 14.8 one should stop when the electrolyte start to bubble. So whats bubbling, a bubble float...
Forum Discussion
MEXICOWANDERER wrote:
My sarcastic laden reply was not directed at you Muddydogs. We have a faction on this forum who try their best to convince others that bubbling actually means boiling and the use of a hydrometer twice a year is as sinful as a nunnery panty-raid. All cyber-printing looks the same. Ideas from the Banjo player in Deliverance, can look equally weighty to proclamations by Stephen Hawkings. I gag at some of the "better ones" by banjo players. But what is not so funny is that seriously interested battery users can fall for the nutso ideas of the seriously under experienced "twanging" of Alfred E. Neumann logic.
You are waxing poetic, Mex... a little more layman like terms. 1-2 little .5mm to 1.0mm diameter bubbles, per second, rising to the surface in the battery vent is a battery still charging.
If the bubbles are bigger, or 3 to 4x that or more in frequency, per second, then it's time to unplug, do a dip, and measure the SG of all 6 cells. Find the cell with the lowest SG reading and use that cell for all future baseline SG readings. A charged battery will have the bubbles "popping" on the surface rather violently. A battery still charging tends to leave the tiny bubbles still sitting in the miniscus of the electrolyte on the surface before finally popping.
If your SG readings are correct, leave unplugged, if the lowest cell is .015 or larger out of range, on the lower SG compared to the rest of the cells, you have a potential problem and the low cell needs an azzkicking with a higher voltage equalization charge to bring it back in line with the rest of it's mates.
