Exide Battery leaking at seal

[peter altas]

Some of them, ex Telecom, have been repaired with what looks to be a bitumen compound and then duct taped.  I've tried a waterproofing bitumous tape (Norton Flash-Tac) but it's getting through still.  This stuff is good but needs to warm up (eg. metal roofs) to work well.  Any other suggestions?  I'm just concerned about using anything that may attack the plastic.  From the MSDS the jar is SAN and the lid may be PE, according to Exide's tech they're both ABS.

[zap]

You could try welding them.

A little more than half way down the page here:

http://www.chinadepot.com/batmanual.html

It's titled "HOW TO REPAIR HOLES AND CRACKS IN BATTERIES:"

From dnix71

http://www.fieldlines.com/comments/2009/6/2/225117/8125/1#1

From Ex Mek

http://www.fieldlines.com/comments/2005/5/3/233334/9995/6#6

http://www.fieldlines.com/story/2005/1/11/153224/887

I think welding would be doable.  I've never done it on a battery case but I've welded a lot of plastic.  On some plastic it works well, not so well on others.  ABS welds nicely.

[wpowokal]

For them to part at this point implies that there has been some expansion of the positive plates from my experience with 650 A/h FanureX.

allan

[peter altas]

Thanks for the help.

I ended up getting in contact with a technical advisor at Dow Corning and he recommended their Silastic 732 compound.  Bit of hard work clearing off the bitumen (mineral turps and a lot of rags later), but the end result seems to look good.  Time will tell as to it's effectiveness.  The Flash-Tac came apart fairly easily in some sections, and didn't evenly bond to the plastic.