Does anyone know of a batter that does not use sulfuric acid. My dad said he remember someone making one that uses Gel.

Thanks-Blake

 

If I recall correctly, a "gel" battery still uses lead-acid, but usually just a lot less of it. However you're probably thinking of something like a red-top, which technically isn't a gel battery, but, well, you know, no one cares...here you go:

http://www.optimabatteries.com/optim...dtop/index.php

 

Yeah, all car batteries are lead acid, but some encapsulate it so you can mount the battery in any orientation without gas/venting problems. Optima, Odyssey, etc are absorbed glass mat (or AGM) batteries.

 

The only reason I ask is because our family goes through batteries like crazy at our ranch. My dad figured out when he opened the top to them that all of them were bone dry because all the liquid had evaporated in the summer heat. I thought the optima battery was only a marketing scam sorta thing.....

 

Why is it that you go through batteries ???

i know of people that have left batteries out in the winter and they drained and froze and cases cracked .

others who over charge all the time .

I know I use up batteries but most often from doing something stupid .

It has been a long time since i have seen a battery with removable caps in any type of battery.

 

There are Gel cell batteries which use an electrolyte gel solution, AGM batteries as TC noted, "Maintenance Free" lead acid, and normal lead acid batteries.
Personally I use a Normal lead acid type in my truck twice a year you pop the cell covers and check fluid levels and top up with distilled water as needed.
I doubt your problem is from the summer heat balko unless the temps get near/over 100C lol... most likely it is related to cycling if you drain a lead acid battery down to near zero charge and leave it 'dead' then charge it up again or boost it and drain it down again the fluid will boil off. It sounds like you're basically working with equipment that you use only now and then... what you can do is top of the batteries with fluid make sure they are all fully charged and add a battery disconnect switch. When you shut down the machine switch the batt. off this will reduce the chance of the battery draining itself through the system. Most switches will tell you to switch the + side but if switch the - side this will protect it from shorts caused by rain/dew on top of the batt as well.
If you take the batt. key out when you switch it off it also makes a handy theft/unauthorized use prevention measure as well

 

Its more of a farm use thing. We only go up twice a year and we have about 30 or so batteries all on trickle chargers. We just recently popped the top of of them and noticed some of them were all dried up. We put 50/50 of sulfuric acid from napa and distilled water. I guess the trickle charger could be the reason there drying up.

 

One thing about topping off batteries is to remember that water evaporates but the acid does not, so you usually only want to add distilled water to top them up. Only would need to use/add acid if the specific gravity of the electrolyte were too low of if the electrolyte somehow spilled out and needed replacing.

I like the AGM batteries myself, they tend to hold up a lot better to things like that. Being totally sealed, they don't dry out and they can often tolerate deep discharges, at least the Odyssey batteries I have used. I have totally drained mine more times than I can remember and they always come right back to life with a charge. I have had an Optima Red Top battery that was not too happy with this sort of treatment.

 

The trickle charger should'nt affect anything as long as it's working properly... if it was trying to ram high amp "fast charges" into the batt. all the time instead of the low amp "trickle" then you could have an issue with them over heating. It also makes a difference if you are using normal batteries or "deep cycle" batteries... the latter are made with heavier plates and can handle being drained and charged much better than the former.

 

Ah ok. Well we will probably go down there this summer to see what happened after toping them off with distilled water. I probably expect we will be getting new ones anyways. Thanks for the info.