Rod,
I just finished going around with that kind of problem in my '86
Escort conversion. Scrubbing the tops of the batteries with baking soda
solution was not sufficient to eliminate the leakage. I eventually pulled
all the batteries out of the car, scrubbed them all down, tops and sides
with baking soda solution, hosed them down to thoroughly rinse them, and
repeated the process. I also cleaned up the battery boxes and hold-down
bars. When I put the batteries back in, before I attached any cables to
them, I still had three batteries that measured +3V to -3V on the terminals.
I tried setting the meter on 2000 microamp scale, and found 11uA, 7uA and
3uA on the terminals of the three batteries that measured voltage to
chassis. The rest measured no voltage, as they should. I decided that
since this was much lower than the nominal 5mA trip of the GFCI, this should
be good enough. I have not tripped the GFCI since this effort.
A little background on my vehicle:
1986 Escort converted by Solar Electric Cars in 1991.
108V of flooded 6V batteries with on - board transformer
isolated charger. Daily driven for 11 years by the
previous owner in Indiana. Charger failure caused him to replace it
with K&W which has a GFCI built in. He decided to sell
the car after months of trying to have the charger work
without tripping the GFCI. He didn't have time to keep
fooling with it. I used an isolation transformer
to charge it until I got the batteries clean enough.
Rob
"Do not be afraid for you are worth more than an
entire flock of sparrows." MT 10:31
-----Original Message-----
From: Rod Hower [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Monday, September 23, 2002 9:59 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: ground fault leakage
I spent several hours trying to figure out
why my TEVan charger kept tripping, I thought
it was due to ground fault leakage.
The TEVan has 6 battery tubs, 4 with 6 batteries
and 2 with 3 batteries.
All are interconnected with Radsox connectors for
quick disconnect.
Using my multimeter and a 10k ohm resistor I measured
the following voltages (AKA leakage)
This was measuring between Chassis and battery positive
and negative after disconnecting the Radsox
connectors between battery tubs
positive negative
overall 110vdc -68
Tub1 25Vdc -46
tub2 71 -55
tub3 86 -50
tub4 80 -27
tub5 73 -5
So it appears from the measurements that there was
big time leakage in tub2.
That is the leakage from battery positive to increased
from 25vdc to 71vdc. So I dropped the tub
and cleaned it quite well.
After reconnecting the leakage on the positive pack
side was higher!
overall 134vdc -55
What am I missing here?
rod
