The Prevailer rep called it "storage latency". When a battery is manufactured and then shipped, it sits for weeks or months in transit. When it arrives at the dealer, it sits on the shelf for a while until the customer takes it home. All this time, there is no energy in or out. The battery gets lazy. That is one reason that batteries need to be broken in when they are new.
To get them back, you will need to stir the acid with a good equalization charge until the voltage stops rising. Bad boy chargers cannot do this. A variac charger will do this if it has an overunity option where the output is greater than the input voltage. When the voltage stop rising at a constant current, take the truck for a drive and watch the voltage on all the batteries to avoid reversing them. Repeat the test a few times until the range comes back You need to do an equalization charge occasionally (weekly to quarterly depending on who you talk to) so that the batteries will retain full capacity. You will need a different charge method. A bad boy cannot do equalization by itself. Joe Smalley Rural Kitsap County WA Fiesta 48 volts NEDRA 48 volt street conversion record holder [EMAIL PROTECTED] ----- Original Message ----- From: "Tom Martin" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Monday, October 14, 2002 10:26 AM Subject: Power and Range GONE ! > > Howdy: > Well, I need knowledge again. For the past 10 months or so my EV truck > has pretty much just set here at the house getting ready to be painted. > I kept the pack charged as best I could using only a bad boy on my 144v > pack. My fancy 'Rusco' charger stays broken and gone back to Russ. That > is a different story. > Anyway, the truck is painted now and I have been trying to > use it every day to run around town and on short trips to nowhere. I > have now got very little power, like it takes forever to get up to 50 > and the pack is nearly dead in about 6 miles. The wife and I used to run > the truck to work and back every day which is about 55 miles round trip. > About half of our trip is on the highway at around 70 mph. After I > learned to properly (fully) charge the pack we did this easily. > I bought a load tester and checked all 24 of the Trojans and > found no defective batteries. Everything else has remained the same and > untouched. > WHAT DID I DO WRONG? > Ok, don't tell me it is the new paint, (I thought of that already) > Help is good, thanks > Tom Martin >
