The maintenance and simple repair methods of lead acid battery-the skill for choosing lead acid battery cases-Glink shares experience.

   Basic concept

   Battery capacity AH: Taking 48V20AH for an example, it indicates that the discharging time of battery can last for one hour by 48V voltage and 20A current. It will over two hours by 48V and 10A.

   Mileage after fully charged: 48V20AH battery discharges by 10A current, to final voltage 42V, two hours(It will hurt the battery if the voltage drops to 42V.), load 70kg, the speed is 25km theoretically and the mileage is 50km.

   Batteries’ life: Theoretically, there are 350 to 500 discharge cycle by 30% discharge rate every time. Batteries’ life is 2 to 5 years generally. (It will  last for 3 years by a correct maintenance way.)

   The common faults of batteries

   Batteries losed water: Batteries will produce hydrogen and oxygen in the process of electrochemical effects and the gases escape from safety valve.Water was composed of hydrogen elements and oxygen elements, losing hydrogen and oxygen means losing water. Losing water will lead to a serious sulfuration, battery's capacity decreased and then positive plates deformed, battery's shape expanded, completely scraped finally. Batteries should have once rehydration maintenance every 12 months. The features of losing water batteries: Battery is hot. The red lamp will not turn to green lamp.

    Battery vulcanized: The surface of the negative plates in the battery formed some white hard crystals, lead sulfate, can not be turned to active substance and they still can not be peeled from negative plates after charging. This phenomenon is known as irreversible sulfation, vulcanization for short. The reasons for the vulcanization:

1,The battery can not get charged adequately for a long time or failed to charge in time after discharging.

2,The battery overdischarged or deeply discharged with a low current for a long time.

3,The battery losed water or the the density of the electrolyte is too high,impure ingredients in the electrolyte.

             4,The ambient temperature changed drastically.The features of vulcanized battery: The battery is fully charged at once as soon as it gets charged and it will lose all electricity as soon as it is in use.

   Batteries' positive plates softed: Electrolyte becomed red or black even coal-black and is in mud form. It is inevitable that active substance on the positive plates softed and falled off, it is related to the cycle times and the deeply discharging. The reasons of positive plates softed in advance:

 1,High current discharging. For example: often overload, uphill start.

 2,Deeply discharging to the limited capacity often

             3,High current charging. Small capacity battery often gets charged by a high current charger. 

   Batteries thermal runaway: In the latter stage of charging, the charger can not turn to green lamp and battery has a high temperature by 80 celsius degree. The battery produces gases all the time and high gas pressure will lead to the battery case deformed, completely scraped finally.

   The reasons of batteries thermal runaway:

             1,Battery losed water.

             2,Battery vulcanized, internal resistance increased.

             3,Battery single cell is behind.

             4,The voltage of charger is too high.Some inferior chargers have a higher voltage than their nominal voltage which leads to produce more gases and then battery is in thermal runaway.

    Battery is short circuit: Battery’s positive plates and negative plates are in contact directly or connected by other conductive materials led to the battery is in short circuit.

    Reasons:

1,Electrolyte is impure or the replenishment solutions contain impurity.

2,The materials of battery grille slloy. The features of short circuit: Fully charged and then lay it aside for a period of time, the battery will have no electricity to leave.

    Battery is open circuit. Open circuit is a rare phenomenon in battery’s failure mode.the features are that battery can not get charged, the indicator light turns to green as soon as charging and there is no current output when discharging.

    Electrolyte leakage: Electrolyte leakage is often caused by collision, exposure in the heat of the sun and other external reasons. The battery case should be revamped at once as soon as the electrolyte is in leakage, at the same time, we should check the electrolyte and replenish electrolyte in time.

    Conclusions: Losing water is the most common phenomenon to battery, battery will lose water generally after putting to use for one year and replishing water at this moment can avoid thermal runaway. Ranking second is vulcanization. Battery vulcanized is the reason to make electromobile riders change batteries. Vulcanized battery after fully charged will have no electricity after a short driving distance. In fact, we don’t need change the battery for that we can repair the vulcanized battery by the following methods. Ranking third is positive plates softed. Overloading and uphill start often lead to positive plates softed.

    The correct charging ways for batteries:

    The conclusion,battery was damaged by wrong charging ways, was agreed unanimously by everyone now. Actually it is, most consumers don’t know how to charge correctly. Following are the correct charging ways:

    A,Small amount of charging, small amount of discharging: For example, battery should get charged every day if our daily riding is more than 10 km, we can choose charging to our battery every two days if our daily riding is less than 10 km. When the capacity of the battery is half of the total capacity, charging is required necessarily.

    B,Suitable time for charging:

     1,The electromobile should get charged after one hour when the electromobile stopped and when it comes green lamp, one to two hours’ charging time is reqired for fully charged.Meanwhile, fully charged can prevent vulcanizing.

2,Do not charge after the battery is in control protection status, especially the controllers which set a very low cut-off voltage such as 10.5V.Generally speaking, it is not suitable to discharge after the battery discharges to 70 precent and  it will be in overdischarging status if discharging continually.

    C,The temperature of charging: There is no need in taking any measures when charging at room temperature, while it is very difficult to get battery fully charged when the temperature is too low, for example in winter.At this time, we should take effort measures to guarantee the battery get fully charged(We can choose a charger with a temperature compensation function).

    D,Notice:We should often check the plug of the charger, whether it is oxidized and the contact is solid. Don’t be nervous if it don’t turn to green lamp occasionally when charging. The phenomenon was usually caused by high current, deeply discharging. Only the battery get several times of charging and discharging cycle again, can it turn to green lamp. So,it is necessary to develop a habit of often observing the stastus of the charger, don’t be careless and then leave the charger pluged without attention, otherwise it is too late when we founded the accident. In addition, observing the temperature of the charger often is necessary.

    The maintenance and simple repair methods for batteries

   1,Replenishing water: Replenishing water is for the sake of avoiding dehydration of the battery, resulting in battery vulcanized and thermal runaway when charging. Replenishing water can’t increase the capacity of the battery and we can remove the battery vulcanization to increase the capacity of the battery.

    The notices of replenishing water:

             A,Before replenishing water, we’d better try to run out of the electricity of the battery and we can open the headlamps or ride the electromobile to a control protection status. The best way to run out of the electricity is discharging to 10.5V by a discharging facility and recording the discharging time in order to the next step.

             B, There are something we should pay attention to. Little is better than much is the principle we should obey when we replenish water.Don’t add too much water, we should add water little by little. Generally, every cell of 20AH batteries needs about 5ml water.

   C,Then, charging with a high voltage, high current. (It is better that charging by a charger with impulse function.)

   D,We can’t replenish water to gel batteries. It is no use adding water to gel batteries because the active substance in the gel batteries is jelly and it can’t be dissolved by water.

   E,The water can’t be tap water or mineral water. Purified water or distilled water is a must. Adding repairing fluid is also feasible and we should pay attention to the quality of the repairing fluid, otherwise, inferior repairing fluid will damage the batteries.

    2,Checking batteries

             A,Checking charging voltage: We should check the single cell voltage every 20 to 30 minutes when charging . The single cell is in short circuit if the voltage is more than 15V and the single cell is behind if the voltage is low than 13V, at this time, we should change the battery.

             B,Checking charging temperature: We should check the temperature of the battery by touching it once every one hour. If the temperature is more than 40 celsius degree, we should replenish water to the battery.

             C,Checking static voltage: There are some problems in the battery if the voltage of whole group battery is more than 0.5V than other batteries. The problems may be unbalanced or vulcanization and separate testing is required. 

    3,The repair methods of single cell

             A,If the voltge is more than 15V when charging, we can draw a conclusion that the single cell is short circuit and it can’t be repaired. At this time, we have to change the battery.

             B,Generally, battery vulcanized or electrode plates softed will lead to a too low voltage when charging, at this time, we should remove vulcanization and repair electrode plates. The simple method is that discharging to 10.5V and adding purified water or repairing solution, then after standed still for 1 to 2 hours, we can charge with a high voltage, high current. (It is better that charging by a charger with impulse function.) Normally, 1 to 3 times’ voltage of nominal voltage, 1.5 to 2 times’ current(that is 3 to 4 amperes) of battery’s output current are the best choice of high voltage, high current. It is not suitable that the charging time is too long and we should stop charging when we feel the battery is hot, otherwise, the electrode plates will be damaged. The simple method works for the batteries which are in slightly short circuit,slightly electrode softed and vulcanization.It doesn’t works for serious situation.    

    The notices for batteries in daily use

    1,Choosing a good-quality charger

    2,Do not charge when the temperature is too high or low.

    3,A deep discharging is required for batteries every 1 to 3 months. The active substance will sink after the batteries were used for a long time. We can activate the substance by charging after the deep discharging.

    4, Small amount of charging, small amount of discharging, battery should get charged every day if we ride our electromobile every day. Charging to battery like this can prevent vulcanizing.

    The skills for choosing lead acid battery cases

    We should change the battery case if we found the case was broken in the daily use of batteries. Firstly, we should found the correct specification to match the battery and we can enquiry the dimensions of the batterie cases on en.glinktec.com. There are abundant varieties in the website and we can consult the technicians when we have some questions. Onething that the consumers should have a good knowledge about is that the materials of the battery are divided into ABS and flame retardancy materials.