Thor Forums

[javelin]

Originally Posted by WearyTraveler

The RV has been sitting in the yard for the past week or so. No shore power but nothing running. Ms WT went out this am and checked the battery button on the panel. 2 of 4 lights... I went out and checked the water level. I'd wager that the previous owner never opened the batteries and looked inside. I say this because the battery cabling is in the way of the levers to open and look inside. After a little wrangling I managed to open the tops on all 4 batteries. One has water below the plates. The other 3, the water is just above the plates.



My 25 cents worth in blue (mybe worth it):



FIRST issue / question: I know that the first needs distilled water and I think that the other 3 do as well. I looked online and the interweb says that the water should be just below the fill spout's bottom. Is this correct? I should fill to just below the bottom of the fill spout?


Fill all four 6vdc batteries to just below the internal fill opening battery cap retainers; not to the top of the openings. Always use distilled water if you can. Also where eye protection and be cautious when adding water for acid splashes on hands and clothes.....acid will eat clothing and will appear as holes in clothing in a few days (if you do splash that is).



SECOND issue / question: I'm know that I'm not supposed to add water to a battery that's not fully charged. So I ran a 120V extension cord from a 20A receptacle in the garage. I put a multimeter on - 6.2V / 12.5V (they're 6V batteries). I thought that if the batteries were charging I'd get more than that? I read somewhere on this forum to look for 13V or so. I fired up the generator and the MM at the batter terminals still read 12.5V. Should I just let the shore power continue and check again tomorrow? Then add distilled water?

I would not charge a battery that has water level below the plates; top them all and then start charging. Make sure your use/store is on. You should see at least 13vdc minimum approx (across each pair of series connected 6vdc batteries) if converter / charging is working. The fact that one battery had water below plates means it probably was being overcharged at some point and actually boiled off some water. Sulphation of the plates can occur quickly with uncovered plates and discharged battery voltage levels.....hopefully a "good charger" will bring the batteries back to full charge. It might be worth investigating your current converter/charger specs to see if it is working properly and of not, replace it with something better.......especially if your current batteries turn up damaged and not able to take a full reliable charge. Paying for new batteries (if required in the end) and charging them with a crappy charger system is basically throwing money away.