[ausev] Lead sulfate questions

[Brian Lasseter]

On Thu, Sep 3, 2009 at 8:04 AM, Joby Wieser<sleeper02_14_06 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> I thought this would minimize lead sulfate buildup, but now I notice that there are large clumps of white stuff that look like calcium buildup on a faucet on the top of my plates.  Is that what lead sulfate looks like?  The stack still takes a full charge and I still get similar range to what I did when they were new.  In a year I probably have only dropped below 30% SOC 10 times and there have been times when I let the water drop slightly below the top of the plates before refilling.  Could it be that the crud is only on the top of the plates and mainly due to the times the water got low?   Is it bad to constantly keep a full charge on the stack?  Any comments would be appreciated.

Certainly keeping it charged will not hurt the pack.  However losing
water will definitely cause problems.  (I had a cap pop off of one
cell, and had it completely evaporate all of its water.)

I would suspect you are just seeing regular sulfanation buildup.   It
happens even in the best of usage cases, unless you are pulse
charging.  (And even if you are pulse charging, I'm unsure how much
time you buy by doing that.)

My lead pack lasted 15 months... and I was happy with that.  Though I
suspect I was abusing my pack more than yours.  I routinely had 400A
draws from the pack, and took it to 30% SOC at least once a week or
so.


-- 
TTFN,
Brian "Lasso" Lasseter

"No Sane man will dance."   -Cicero (106-43 B.C.)