Hi Lee, The setup would be better for sealed batteries. Unless you slide out the rack that holds the pack, you can't even see the batteries. They have a watering system but I don't know much about it yet. There's a series of 3 hoses that connect to caps on the batteries. According to the manual, you plug in this pump and tank into the fittings in the front once a month and run the pump until the red beads in the handle stop moving or about 15 seconds. How (or if) it maintains the proper level in the batteries I don't know. What I've learned I've read or seen in pictures.
I believe the charger was a custom design and by the comments I've heard, not a very good one. I haven't taken it out yet but from what I can see it's base is a 1/4" aluminum plate with the goodies covered by a black ABS cover. I'm guessing its 12" x 5" x 6". No external controls that I could see. A 4" muffin fan is on one side. Three 110V AC wires in (well 2 and ground), 2 for output, and 2 small wires . One of the small wires is the charging interlock. I can't remember where the other went . If I turn the charger on open circuit, I get 0 volts out. When I plugged it into my very dead 2.4 volt pack, the voltage came all the way up to 4 and stopped. I thought perhaps the charger may have some startup circuit the prevents it from doing anything if it doesn't see any pack voltage so after the Fair Radio brought it up for a couple of hours I plugged the original charger back in. No joy. I didn't expect anything but I had to try. Lee if I remember from your previous posts about bringing back a battery from the dead, you suggested to totally drain it with a load and once it read 0 volts, place a dead short across it. Charging should be done very slowly, over days. Is that correct? What sort of current do you recommend? I skipped the draining step as the voltage was so low. Is that a reasonable approach? Remeber my goal is to just test the motors. The ideal situation would be enough to drive 3 blocks to the DMV and back. thanks, Steve In a message dated Fri, 20 Sep 2002 12:55:53 PM Eastern Standard Time, Lee Hart <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: >[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: >> I'd love to be able to check the water in each cell but the Tropica >> doesn't have access to the batteries unless the pack is pulled. Until >> I either find someone here with the wheeled rack that you need to >> remove them or get one made myself, I'm sort of stuck. > >It's battricide to put floodeds in a box you can't get easy access to. >The first thing I'd do is figure out a way to make it easy to pull the >pack for maintenance and servicing. What scheme did they use to get at >the batteries? > >> So far, the 3 Tropica owners I've talked to have all had charger >> failures so something's got to change. > >What did they use for a charger? >-- >Lee A. Hart � � � � � � � �Ring the bells that still can ring >814 8th Ave. N. � � � � � �Forget your perfect offering >Sartell, MN 56377 USA � � �There is a crack in everything >leeahart_at_earthlink.net �That's how the light gets in - Leonard Cohen > >
