From: ` on
On Jul 22, 8:14 pm, "Beauregard T. Shagnasty"
<a.nony.m...(a)example.invalid> wrote:
> I sure hope he never gets within the same *county* as any aircraft I
> might ride in.

Don't ride in any Hughes 500 helicopters, L-1011 Tri-Stars, or MD80
jetliners then, 'cause I built a shitpot of those planes.

The Smithsonian Air & Space Museum is full of aircraft and spacecraft
that I worked on, and the oldest aircraft that I worked on which is
still flying is the B-52
at Edwards AFB that carries Pegasus rockets, etc up to 39K feet for
high altitude launch.



From: LSMFT on
mike wrote:
> '83 Honda VT500C Shadow.
>
> IN hot weather, the battery goes dry in about 500 miles.
> To put in water, I have to take off the seat, remove the battery,
> fill it, reverse the process. PITA.
>
> It's my garage sale bike, so it does sit idling a lot while
> I'm browsing. The battery does get a workout.
>
> Anything I can do to reduce the water loss or make it easier to fill?
> Clever fill gadget? Getting water to it ain't hard. It's telling
> when to stop adding water that's hard.
>
> Regulator is at 14.39V. Well within
> the 15V max stated in the manual.
> I'd crank it down a little if I had the option.
>
> Ideas?
> Thanks, mike

You can fill a battery with a syringe. They have them at auto parts
stores. The holes are too small for regular battery filler tubes.


--
LSMFT

I haven't spoken to my wife in 18 months.
I don't like to interrupt her.
From: paul c on
LSMFT wrote:
> ...
> You can fill a battery with a syringe. They have them at auto parts
> stores. The holes are too small for regular battery filler tubes.
>
>

Or a plastic straw! (available nearly everywhere)
From: paul c on
Regarding 'boiling off' is it just the water that is reduced? (IOW no
need to replenish acid?)
From: ` on
On Jul 23, 5:30 am, paul c <toledobythe...(a)oohay.ac> wrote:
> Regarding 'boiling off' is it just the water that is reduced?  (IOW no
> need to replenish acid?)

You *never* add acid to a battery, you add electrolyte to the battery
under certain specific conditions, i.e., when the battery is fully
charged but the electrolyte level is low.

I seem to be the only person in the world that knows to add
electrolyte to a fully charged battery which has a low electrolyte
level.

This is what we did to batteries at the battery shop at Edwards AFB,
where we had hundreds of batteries on charge at all times.

Motor Cyclist magazine did make the point that corrosion will result
from making the electolyte too strong by adding acid.

But, what are you going to do? Take a fully charged battery and weaken
it by adding water to raise the fluid level?

That's the vicious cycle that the OP is in...

Electrolyte is an approximately 50/50 mixture of sulfuric acid and
distilled water.

There's no reason to add electrolyte to a battery that's in good
condition.

Normal battery electrochemistry weakens the electrolyte to become more
watery as the sulfur in the acid becomes lead sulfate during
discharge.

If the sulfur has plated itself onto the lead plates, adding water and
charging the battery simply boils the water off.