Yesterday went out to the bike, key was in on position, battery dead, D'oh!  When I removed the battery to charge it, I saw that all cells were dry.  I probably last checked the level "sometime in the last six months", and have occasionally topped up the cells, but nothing like this.  I don't have the obvious (cracked battery case), so what might cause all your electrolyte to go away?

Thanks!

When lead-acid batteries are charged, the electrolyte becomes more acidic. When they reach full charge, the charging current begins dissociating (breaking down) the water in the acid. The products are hydrogen and oxygen, and as gasses they escape through the vents on the battery. If you watch the battery the gas bubbles up and looks as if the water is boiling, hence the terminology of "boiling the battery dry." Hot weather makes this worse. The only cure is to add the water back. Trouble is, if the plates are exposed to air and allowed to dry out, they may never recover and the capacity of the battery will be permanently reduced, perhaps to the point of unusability.

Maintenance-free batteries have similar problems. However the plate chemistry is slightly different which reduces water dissociation. The batteries are sealed, so the gases cannot leak out (but they do have overpressure reliefs), and they have a small amount of catalyst which helps the hydrogen and oxygen to recombine into water. Thus no water need be added for the life of the battery, nor can it be. If the battery is severely overcharged the gases escape through the pressure relief, and cannot be replenished.

That Italian chick,, dang,, what was her name,, Porate', Porate'

Thats it,, Porate',, sweet little thing,, had a boyfriend, into magic,, he used her in the disappearing girl part of the show,, Dont know what ever happened to poor little Eva Porate'..

I dont mind ya being pedantic, but harpin on what ya know gets old..

& not only that,, ya messed up my FUN, dude!

oh,, right,, dang..

what amperage were you charging it at ?
me thinks you "cooked/boiled" the water right outta er..
2 amps is plenty, 6 amps too much for sickle batt"smart"charger is better.

Charon wrote on 11/19/12 at 20:08:44:


In other words... in molecular absorption spectrometry, the absorption cross section σ is expressed in terms of a linestrength, S, and an (area-normalized) lineshape function, Φ. The frequency scale in molecular spectroscopy is often in cm−1, wherefore the lineshape function is expressed in units of 1/cm−1, which can look odd but is strictly correct. Since N is given as a number density in units of 1/cm3, the linestrength is often given in units of cm2cm−1/molecule, disassociating itself atomically; thus, the liquid disappears.

360k+ wrote on 11/20/12 at 06:32:33:


I think the squirrels drunk it .. heard about an acid trip.