The second set of four T-125's:
This set looks a little older than the first set. They were very dry and the plates were exposed in most of the cells. It took about of three quarts of distilled water to get the level up to the proper level in two sessions (the water seem to soak in overnight and the levels went down.)
The electrolyte in all the batteries has a brownish tinge to it. I don't know what's going on with that...
I put two in a string on the dumber charger. The "charge complete" LED came on immediately and stayed on but the amp meter was reading about 3 amps. The charger was turning on and off very quickly... The cycling slowed as voltage went up and the battery took more amps. In about a half hour the amp meter was up to 5 amps and the the "charge complete" LED was staying off.
Once the amps got up to 9 amps (about all the dumber charger will put out,) I put the string on the smart charger and set it to 25 amps. Within a few seconds the smart charge beeped and ending the bulk charge cycle and went to absorption; in this mode the batteries took about 17 amps. I left it that way for about an hour and a half.
The volts went up to about 14.2v. Two cells were bubbling nicely and the water level in them had risen almost to the bottom of the cap. Somewhere between yesterday when I added the water and today I'd read not to add water (as long as the plates are covered) unless a battery is fully charged because the water level will rise during charging... Yes, it does.
Does that mean that I watered down the electrolyte enough to bother anything?
I didn't like it that two cells (one in each battery) were bubbling so much but nothing was happening in the other four and I wasn't sure whether I should leave the batteries charging over night but figured it was safe to put the charger into equalization mode so that's where I left it for the night.
- Ed.